The Crankies with Katherine Fahey and Dan Van Allen

The Lantern Sisters, Katherine Fahey and Dan Van Allen, are based in Baltimore, Maryland.

Katherine Fahey is a a candid and thoughtful multidisciplinary artist who combines the folk arts of storytelling, hand cut papercut artwork, and shadow puppetry in the form of *crankies (scrolling artwork inside a box). Katherine’s Crankies are often based on folklore, oral histories, or songs as far reaching as the southern swamps of Louisiana to the northern reaches of Inuit Quebec. Others are personal stories from her childhood in Virginia or the streets of her in Baltimore City.

Katherine and Dan’s Crankie performances transport audiences to another time and place, with their authentic and personal interpretations of folk tales, oral histories, and songs. Stories and songs shift with the times, uncovering new meanings in old words, new ways of talking about the communal pathways that led us to where we are today. Crankies are a way to interpret our uncertain times, to draw artistic inspiration and power from the sources of meaning in their lives. History, community, folk tales, ballads, live performance, and environmental instability all manifest in the sounds, feelings, and sensations that permeate their Crankies.

Joining Katherine will be her performance partner puppeteer and foley artist Dan Van Allen, known also for antique furniture restoration.

*Crankies are a form of visual performance, involving a cranked scroll of artwork usually presented inside a box. It’s a bygone form of visual performance, involving a hand cranked scroll of artwork inside a box. Her crankies are usually shared live, in darkened space, which creates a warm feeling of sitting around the fireside.