Saturday, August 15, 2015

Dancing with a Pig



This 1907 dance routine between a lady and a guy in a pig costume was probably based on a Vaudeville performance. They dance together for a while and then the pig is embarrassed when his clothes come off. They bow to the audience and go backstage behind the curtain.

But the kicker is at the end (Skip directly to 2:00) when a closeup of the pig's face shows him grimacing, waggling his ears, and sticking out his tongue, which is delightfully creepy (Link to YouTube). Thanks, Mel!

3 comments:

elgin said...

I question your judgement with the term "delightfully".

James Gurney said...

Elgin, yes, I suppose you're right. I take delight in the strangest things. Like I really enjoy bad dreams.

Pierre Fontaine said...

Being someone who's dabbled in costumes and puppetry, I'm really impressed by the sophistication of the costume. Tthey did a wonderful job recontouring the costume to mask the human figure to match shape of a pig.

Equally impressive is the sophistication of the facial controls that allow it to snarl, roll its eyes (Those are the eyes of the person in the costume) and flap its ears. I'm curious where the performer's eye holes were. Perhaps s/he could see out of the snout or perhaps the pig's eyes were mesh.

I truly found this completely charming!