''Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue"
Duration: 6 minutes 52 seconds. Please note in an exhibition context this video is a loop.
High definition video
48 khz stereo sound
2011
'Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue" (2011) uses fifty-four new drawings by Creamer to tell the tale of her journey to the Romanian city of Brasov in 2005, where by chance she encountered a group of dancing Skzekely children in the town square. This encounter led to her earlier film ‘Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov’ (2006). There is no film footage or photographs of this journey or the moments leading up-to this encounter. Instead, with reference to silent movies, Creamer has told this tale by her black and white drawings which have become the film she can no longer make. As well as narrative images she had also painted the film’s opening and closing title sequences, film directions to fade up or down, and a wipe transition between two of the film’s sequences. Creamer reveals the un-made film as a single female hand opens a black box and lifts out one drawing at a time: a sort of anti-animation each movement is also the next frame of the absent film. The moving female hand constantly throws resonant shadows across the drawings while the rhythm between each drawing is precisely timed with an accompanying soundtrack that references 1920’s films. “Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue" is a way to tell a story using a form of paper cinema that alludes to silent film: cinema without film in the traditional sense. It is a story-within-a-story, a mis-en-abyme, referencing both Creamer’s own earlier film as well as the German legend ‘Die Kinder zu Hameln’ by Die Brüder Grimm.
Anne-Marie and Tania get the train from Budapest to Transylvania. They change trains at Brasov and while they wait they drink a coffee in the town square during which they encounter a group of dancing Skzekely children. Tania tells Anne-marie this is the very same square where the Pied Piper was said to have brought the children of Hamelin 730 years ago, after they were said to have disappeared into a void in a cave in Poppenburg just outside Hamelin in Germany. They continue their travels deeper into Transylvania. Anne-Marie decides to search for the cave in the Mereisti mountain gorge which is said to be the exact spot, with a similar void, where the Hamelin children entered Romania. As she does so she thinks about a street in Hamelin called Bungeloss, or soundless street, which to this day in homage to the 130 lost children of the town all conversation and music playing must fall silent if people should find them-selves walking there.
Exhibition History: Anne-Marie premiered ''Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue" at the Diepenheim Kunstvereniging, Holland, in the Diepenheim Drawing Centre in October 14th 2011. The exhibition features Hans de Wit, Een Keuze, Peter Morrens, Anne-Marie Creamer, Jochem van der Spek, Hans Op de Beeck, and Ben Kruisdijk. The exhibition has been curated by Arno Kramer and feature current forms of important experimental approaches to drawing.
EMERGENCY6, Aspex Arts, Uk, 2013: It was also exhibited in EMERGENCY6 , together with its sister work 'Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov', aspex arts, Portsmouth, UK, where Anne-Marie won the Peoples Art Prize for the work.
A History of Drawing, Camberwell Space, curated by Kelly Chorpening; 'Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue', also featured in this overview of 70 years of drawing. The show was discussed on Radio 4's Start the Week & this work was specifically mentioned as a highlight in a review of the exhibition by Nicole Mollet in Artists Newsletter/ an.web, in January 2018. Link
“Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue" at the Diepenheim Kunstvereniging, Holland, in the new Diepenheim Drawing Centre that launches on October 14th 2011. The exhibition features Hans de Wit, Een Keuze, Peter Morrens, Anne-Marie Creamer, Jochem van der Spek, Hans Op de Beeck, and Ben Kruisdijk. The exhibition has been curated by Arno Kramer and feature current forms of important experimental approaches to drawing, and will run from 14 October to 7 December 2011.
From Nicole Mollet's review of this work in the exhibition, A History of Drawing at Camberwell Sapce, curated by Kely Chorpening:
"....There are stories behind each piece, some of which have been explained in the small booklet containing an essay by Kelly Chorpening. The pieces that particularly grabbed my attention are;
Anne-Marie Creamer Meeting the Pied Piper in Brasov, a paper prologue , film 2011
A black box containing fifty four black and white watercolour drawings of remembered scenes from a journey are slowly lifted out of the box by the hand of the artist. In the background a piano accompaniment reminiscent of old silent movies plays. There is a comical interplay between the speed at which the artist reveals her drawings and the pace of the sound track. This piece is romantic with some melancholic overtones, the fairy tale of lost children revisited. (watch here http://amcreamer.net/meeting-the-pied-piper-in-brasov-a-paper-prologue/)..."