Inside dinosaur encounters: The Puppets and their Puppeteers

the calendar of events for the natural history museum of los angeles county
Photo by Karen Knauer
Dec 09/Jan 10
NATURALIST
Inside Dinosaur Encounters:
The Puppets and their Puppeteers
a letter from the president:
Linking our Visitors to our
Research and Collections
Dear Friend,
There has long been important research performed by the Natural History Museum’s curatorial staff.
Every year, our researchers discover new species, excavate remarkable fossils, track the planet’s biodiversity, and shed light on complicated topics such as climate change, evolution, and continental drift.
It is possible that this research has stayed a bit too hidden, however — accomplished behind closed
lab doors and collection spaces, and although accessible in scholarly publications and the books our
staff write, not necessarily available to the general public. We think it is time now, as a fundamental
part of the Museum’s transformation, to better connect our experts’ scientific, historic, and anthropological findings with our visitors’ experience — both in what they see on exhibit, and what they
experience in our programs.
Internally, we have hired a new Vice President of Research and Collections, paleontologist Dr. John
Long, whose priority is making the Museum the institution that best communicates science to the
public. We have also re-structured our public programs and education sections into the newly formed
Education and Exhibits department — a group that will translate and interpret extraordinary objects,
and the stories behind them, to our guests.
Externally, the shift in philosophy is already evident, whether in First Fridays, which begin again
in January, or our weekend programming for families. There is an increased emphasis on scientific
discovery, behind-the-scenes tours, and face time with curators and collections managers.
As you read about Dinosaur Encounters in this issue of the Naturalist, you will see that the program’s
lifelike T. rex and Triceratops puppets do much more than entertain audiences and recount a few dinosaur facts. The presentations also touch on the fundamentals of paleontology, on the science necessary to discover, collect and exhibit fossils, and on the depth of the Museum’s dinosaur collections.
It also becomes clear how active these collections are: They will populate our new Dinosaur Mysteries
galleries; help explain how these creatures lived and became extinct; and inspire the structural design
of the puppets before them.
As we renovate many of the Museum’s public spaces, we are also creating unforgettable experiences
for our audiences who are seeking connections between nature and culture, and the past, present
and future. The heart of this ambitious effort is where our research and collections meet the visitor
experience. We hope you join us.
Sincerely,
Jane G. Pisano
President and Director
NATURALIST 3
Dinosaur
Encounters
There aren’t many Museum experiences that inspire this range
of reactions: glee, screams, laughter, tears, stunned silence,
applause, hugs, speedy runs to the bathroom in order to hide,
and earnest questions about whether the Museum breeds
dinosaurs through some kind of Jurassic Park DNA magic.
a few feet away in the middle of a museum diorama hall that
was quiet and static just seconds before; and performers and
educators who manage to sell an extraordinary show, and then
go one step further — use it as a visceral education tool.
The Dinosaur Encounters program has two stars: a 14-foot
Tyrannosaurus rex and a 9-foot Triceratops puppet. But the term
“puppet” is a bit of a disservice: They wouldn’t elicit such
powerful reactions if their look and behavior didn’t resonate so
deeply with viewers.
Like so much in the Museum’s exhibition and event curation,
the aim is layered learning: after the awe of the visuals quells,
the screams quiet, and camera flash bulbs die down, the content
begins to highlight the Museum’s vast dinosaur collections,
the processes of paleontology, and the active discoveries and
excavations that occur all the time at the hands of Museum
paleontologists.
The Dinosaur Encounters program launched in 2008, and
immediately drew crowds. Its appeal rests in a combination of
things: the time lapse between first sight of the dinosaurs and
the realization that they’re actually puppets (this can be
seconds, minutes, or occasionally, never); the age-old lure and
magic of dinosaurs; the shock of seeing such high-tech puppets
The Puppet Creation Story
4 DEC09/JAN10
The seeds of the program were sown a few years ago, when an
emerging Australian theatrical company caught the eye of NHM
staffers. Erth Visual and Physical, Inc. started as a performance
troupe and later began to fabricate life-like puppets for
its shows.
The Dinosaur Institute paleontologists provided the puppet
masters with sketches and ideas for basic colors and skeletal
shape. They also decided that they wanted the T. rex to have a
skin that to some, might seem unexpected. In keeping with a
major area of Chiappe’s study — the evolutionary relationship
between dinosaurs to birds — Erth gave the T. rex feathers,
because it’s Chiappe’s belief that this dinosaur may have
possessed an early form of feathers when it lived approximately
66 million years ago.
The puppet pair took about a year to plan, in a process with
images, sketches, and dialogue going back and forth between
Australia and the U.S. After they were completed, they traveled
to the Museum with Erth representatives, who trained Museum
staffers how to operate the puppets.
It’s Show TIme
In the program, four puppeteers wield two puppets. They’re
typically accompanied onstage with a “handler” (usually a fellow
puppeteer) and a Gallery Interpreter. There is a component
of improvisation involved, but as is the case with a lot of
performance, there’s more scripting and choreography than
one might expect.
At first, the presentations were very creature-centric, focusing
on eating habits, behavior, and anatomy. But as Museum
educators learned they had both a hit and a rapt audience on
their hands, the shows became more nuanced, and a
new performance art department began to emerge within
the Museum.
A call went out for actor-educator-puppeteer hyphenates, and
after auditions a crew of four was hired. It was a learning
process, particularly because of the unexpected ways audiences
reacted. This was no seminar or book-signing where people
stayed seated and quiet. In these shows, audiences members
regularly shouted, moved around, and rushed the dinosaurs. It
was clear that the fragile puppets needed handlers — people
Photo by Lauren Clark
Before the Museum’s pair was commissioned, Erth’s fabricators
brought over a dinosaur puppet to Los Angeles for a trial run. It
was a life-sized ankylosaur, based on a creature found in
Queensland, Australia. It was a bit of a revelation, in terms of
appeal, though Museum educators and the Museum’s Dinosaur
Institute Director Dr. Luis Chiappe wanted puppets based on
specimens found closer to home. They settled on a juvenile
T. rex and Triceratops, both based on specimens discovered in
North America and part of the NHM’s collections.
Nick Rogers
T. rex Puppeteer
Background: A native Angeleno, Rogers came to the
Museum in elementary school, and the Hall of Birds is the
spot he remembers most. He attended Hamilton High
School Academy of Music and later, Muhlenberg College
in Allentown, PA. He’s an actor, and a company member of
the Pacific Resident Theatre in Venice.
Favorite thing about the job: “I like talking to
children after the presentations, when I come out of the
suit. We’ve inspired them, and they’re asking questions
about dinosaurs and fossils. Part of our job is also getting
them hyped about the new dinosaur hall. People who see
us want to see more dinosaurs; it whets their palette.”
Research: Taking his cues from Dr. Luis Chiappe’s beliefs about the ancestral link between birds and dinosaurs,
Rogers researches videos of emus and ostriches — animals
that are therapod-like.
Performance trademark: “Each audience has its
own personality and it fuels my performances. I’ve learned
to roll with the unexpected...and I’d like to think that
audiences enjoy rolling with me.”
Funniest moment: There have been several.
The gig started with an audition that entailed crawling
around like an animal. The call back involved carrying a
115-pound woman around on his back to see if he could
handle a 75-pound dinosaur. The stage was set for a
unique job: Rogers has been run after, pointed at, slapped
at, yelled at, hugged, kissed, and endlessly photographed.
NATURALIST 5
Photo by Lauren Clark
well versed in educating and crowd control.
Jessica Chisum
Triceratops Puppeteer
Background: Chisum is an actress and physical theater
performer. She was born and raised in Fairbanks, Alaska,
and received a BFA in Acting from Cornish College of the
Arts in Seattle, WA, where she studied physical theater. A
longtime distance runner and budding yogi, she says there
is no better workout than walking on all fours with a Triceratops on your back. She has also appeared in Museum
presentations as an iguana, butterfly egg, pupae, caterpillar, giant monarch butterfly, and giant Luna Moth.
Favorite thing about the job: Inside the puppet,
she likes watching children laugh and squeal in delight.
Out of the puppet, Chisum likes the performances in
which she dresses up like 19th century fossil hunter Mary
Anning — it’s a new component of Dinosaur Encounters,
geared toward tying the presentations to paleontology.
Research and Preparation:Yoga and running help
her stay in shape and balance a 70-pound animal on her
back. While training to perform as a Triceratops, she
watched videos online of charging rhinoceroses. She also
forced herself to walk around her apartment on all fours to
perfect the Triceratops walk.
Performance trademark: She likes learning new
tricks as a Triceratops, like her patented “Dino Charge,” in
which she gets all four feet off the ground at once, and her
newly developed “Bucking Triceratops” back-kick.
Funniest moment: There have been several. Chisum
still remembers a child petting her and telling her she
was a “very good girl,” and every time Gallery Interpreter
Robert Spellman kisses her Triceratops on the beak in
performance she blushes. But the puppet is demure and
mischievous: At a donor dinner once, she ate sorbet off of a
surprised guest’s plate. The beak is still a little sticky.
6 DEC09/JAN10
crew of four was selected, two women and two men — a split
that was dictated by height requirements. Performance artists
Carissa Barnett and Jessica Chisum operate the 70-pound
Triceratops from a crouched pose, akin to the “downward dog” in
yoga, using small stilts in the puppet’s front legs to walk. The
T. rex demands a puppeteer at least 5’11”. Its operators, Mike
Steckel and Nick Rogers, stand upright inside, wearing the
75-pound puppet like a backpack.
Is That a Robot?
The answer to the frequently-asked robot question is no. The
only electrical element in the puppets is a microphone and
speaker inside to create the puppet’s roars and growls, and a
tiny fan. The puppeteers have developed a whole vocabulary:
sounds for happiness, fear, curiosity, even sneezes. Bike brake
controls operate eyelids and jaws.
They also have created certain routines and tricks since the
inception of the program — shy, cowering gestures with
alarmed kids; robust roars when the audience is game; fear and
flight when something “scares” them; and quiet when the
Gallery Interpreters are talking.
But it’s not all fun and games. It’s steamy inside the puppets,
the amount of physical exertion is intense, the puppeteers’
backs gets sore, and their hands hurt from walking with them
(in the case of the Triceratops) and working the facial features.
The performers also have very little periphery vision inside the
puppets; the Triceratops particularly cannot see anything above
an adult’s waistline. That means they rely on handlers for cues,
and are known to memorize shoes so they know which person
to follow in a crowded gallery.
When the puppeteers do their jobs too well, that other pesky
problem materializes: Audience members are compelled to
move in and touch the puppets, and because the creatures are
hand-painted and crafted with delicate fabrics, this isn’t a great
idea. The handlers limit contact to protect the puppets, but also
the puppeteers themselves — being inside the puppets is a
constant balancing act, and unexpected bumps and nudges can
send a puppeteer reeling.
A Hit on our Hands
With the success of the dinosaurs, a new program called Hop,
Slither, and Stalk was also created. It aimed for a more flexible
reach, so that performers could wander the Museum and
perform outside. With high-tech puppetry accomplished
through the dinosaurs, Performance Artist Supervisor Jen
Photo by Dave Lauridsen.
Bloom also wanted to experiment with a
more accessible kind of costume and
disguise — the animals of Hop, Slither,
and Stalk are created with a do-it-yourself
aesthetic and everyday material. This
way, the logic goes, our visitors will be
blown away by an extinct creature in one
program, and inspired to make and
appreciate a familiar creature in another.
the quartet. “They take their jobs as
educators and performance artists
seriously. They’re doing something that
no one else is doing — putting themselves in an animal’s body and trying to
exist like that is what keeps it interesting
for them. If they just did Barney, they’d
get bored.”
That means that Bloom’s four performance artists rotate between flying
butterflies on stilts, buzzing bees,
crawling spiders, and roaring through the
halls as the young T. rex and Triceratops.
“They’re really physical,” Bloom says of
Education through Performance
Over time, Bloom has found that a short
play-like structure works best for
Dinosaur Encounters: There’s a lot of
acoustic reverberation in the North
American Mammal Hall, and she wants to
veer away from overlapping dino roars
and children’s yelps. The new plays are
about 20 minutes long, geared toward
themes of discovery and citizen science,
and they are beginning to incorporate
characters such as the non-fictional Mary
Anning, an early fossil hunter who trail
blazed paleontology in 19th century
England. “It becomes a message to the
kids in the audience that even as a child
you can still go find stuff in your backyard,” Bloom says. “You never knowwhere
it’s going to lead. Backyard science can be
a fun hobby. It can also turn into a job.”
NATURALIST 7
Photo by Lauren Clark
Carissa Barnett
Triceratops Puppeteer
Background: She has enjoyed a varied stage career,
from clowning with Ringling Bros. Circus, to sword fighting at Universal Studios, to acting as an archeologist at
Disneyland. Carissa has studied a variety of physical and
performance disciplines, including Suzuki Actor Training, Acroyoga, Martial Arts, Theatrical Combat, and yoga.
Working as a performance artist at NHM makes her roar,
crawl, and scuttle with joy.
Favorite thing about the job: “I just love interacting with the kids. They are so delighted by what we do,
and the dinosaurs are completely real to them. We bring
animals to life that don’t exist in our world anymore, and
ignite the children’s imaginations to help them learn. It’s
an awesome experience to be a part of that.”
Research: “Going to the zoo and observing animals was
very helpful for me. Having the opportunity to not only
watch how the animals move, but also to get a sense of how
they relate to the world, and and then try to embody that
in the puppet. I try to drop into another mindset — that of
the animal — that exists more symbiotically with life, and
experiences the world around it without human constructs. I interact with kids, with water bottles, with shoes,
with everything in my environment much differently than
I would as myself.”
Performance trademark: “One of my favorite things
to do is to sneeze. I must have been making snorting
sounds when I was warming up, and realized maybe I
could make the puppet sneeze too. So I enlisted Nick’s
help, and he helped me create a realistic Triceratops
sneeze. It’s just fun and silly”
Funniest moment: “One of my favorite moments was
when Jessica was in the puppet. A little boy, about two
years old, ran right onstage and Jessica just ambled over
to him. He looked at the Triceratops without fear, she
sniffed at him, and they stood nose to nose for a moment.
Then she lowered to the ground in a loving little bow. He
was looking at the Triceratops like it was the coolest, most
magical creature he had ever seen. It was the sweetest
moment, seeing this little boy completely connect to
the Triceratops.”
8 DEC09/JAN10
We talk in a more sophisticated way about the processes of
science now, about how we know what we know,” adds Dan
Keeffe, Manager of Informal Learning. “We’re careful to point
out that the puppets represent the best current theories about
what dinosaurs could look like, but that they are just theories,
and the science of dinosaurs is changing all the time.”
Added to the team of four puppeteers (one of which always acts
as a handler when a colleague is inside a puppet) are the
Museum’s Gallery Interpreters, educators who give tours and
demonstrations, and lead family-learning activities, throughout
the Museum.
“Every teacher has a different hook for teaching dinosaurs,”
Bloom says. “Some like to talk about extinction, some like to
talk about the processes of paleontology, some like to talk
about the feathers. I work with each educator and figure out
what their hook is, and what’s going to be the best way to
theatricalize that hook.”
Commissioning the puppet pair was a fortuitous decision,
because Dinosaur Encounters have helped keep visitors happy
while the Museum’s dinosaur hall has closed. They also hint at
the future. Several spectacular specimens of T. rex and
Triceratops will appear in the new Dinosaur Mysteries galleries,
opening in summer 2011. And what will make this new exhibit
exceptional is its layered and contextual approach: fossils are on
display, and the paleontological processes necessary to find,
prepare and research each fossil, are revealed — just as they are
in Dinosaur Encounter shows.
Is There Such a Thing as Too Real?
There have been lessons along the way. Someone in the
audience always think the dinosaurs are real, so within the first
two minutes, before the T. rex and Triceratops even emerge, the
educators make sure to inform audiences about the forthcoming puppets. Emphasis on the word “puppets.” Otherwise,
Blooms says she runs of the risk of 75 kids busting through the
door screaming, “He’s going to eat me! He’s going to eat me!”
“It’s a dark space, and I think they want it to be real on some
level,” she explains. “They’ve been in the Museum looking at our
cool stuff, their imaginations are firing. I think part of them
wants to have a fight or flight experience.”
Bloom is very interested in animal movement theory, and
frequently talks with her team about where all the animals in
her programs initiate movement. They watch a lot of YouTube
clips and National Geographic footage. They have been on field
trips to the zoo, where the Triceratops puppeteers look at hippos
and rhinos, and the T. rex operators look at ostriches and
roosters. They’re not theorizing about dinosaur movement;
that’s a topic scientists may never know. What the performance
artists are looking for is inspiration — they take the job too
seriously to get inside the puppet and simply clomp around.
Photo by Lauren Clark
“Do you know actors?” Bloom asks. “They’re very different than
regular humans. They kind of go into an animal trance haze. For
a few minutes before and after each show, it’s hard to talk to
them. When he’s in the zone as a T. rex, all that Mike is thinking
about is, ‘How do I get out of here?’ and ‘I smell food, where is
it?’ That’s how he motivates his movement. He’s thinking
survival, he’s thinking shelter.”
The Show that Sticks
With their striking visuals and the thoughtful scripts, Keeffe
says that the shows aren’t one-offs in the viewers’ imaginations,
and that they aren’t forgotten when the show was over. “We did
a survey that asked visitors what they had learned about
dinosaurs during their visit. The people who had seen Dinosaur
Encounters were able to talk more holistically about dinosaurs
and understood the larger picture. Dinosaur Encounters
inspired them to look more closely at all of the dinosaur-related
things we had in the Museum.”
The dinosaur puppets have made appearances at the Grove, the
L.A. County Fair, and a few Museum donor events, but usually
can be found on Level 2 of the Museum. Their shows have
caught on among teachers, who frequently schedule field trips
to include a presentation, and on busy weekdays the puppets
will perform in front of 350 kids, four times a morning.
On weekends, the program is equally popular, and ironically,
often chattier, because the adults sometimes cannot digest the
fact that the creatures are puppets, and fire off questions about
where they are kept and bred.
“We shouldn’t forget that the puppet presentations are not
scientific experiences, they’re for entertainment,” Chiappe says.
“But because of the scripts and because of the work of the
puppeteers and the GIs, we can use them to engage people
about the real science and the work of the paleontologists of
the Museum.”
For Dinosaur Encounters demonstration days and times, visit www.
nhm.org/encounters.
—Kristin Friedrich,
[email protected]
Mike Steckel
T. rex Puppeteer
Background: At the University of Northern Iowa,
Steckel began studying performance art and puppetry,
and did one season as Buck, the mascot for the Waterloo Bucks. Since moving to L.A. in 2007 he has studied
performance art with Rachel Rosenthal and is currently a
member of TOHUBOHU!
Favorite thing about the job: “I just love pretending to be a dinosaur, I love giving people this fun, exciting
experience. The T. rex puppet is scary enough to look
at, but when they see it react to them and they can interact
with it, that it’s not a robot — I think that part is the
most fun.”
Research: “I just try to think of the T. rex more like a
bird, so that he can be more active, more agile and smarter.
He’s not a big slow lizard.”
Performance trademark: “I look at lots of different
animals, and that’s the great thing about working here at
the Museum. You have lizard specialists, snake specialists,
bug specialists. I look at a wide variety of life and try to
understand how animals behave, and then how to portray
that in a puppet.”
Funniest moment: “There was an adult, a dad, jumping
up and down and excited about the Triceratops. Both his
kids were staring at him, really embarrassed. To see the
parent more excited than the kids is funny to me.”
NATURALIST 9
BELOVED FOSSIL SPECIMENS
GET A NEW LOOK
Left: A member of the Phil Fraley Productions team works on the reconstructed skull of the juvenile T. rex that will appear in the unique “growth series” of Dinosaur Mysteries, opening
in summer of 2011. On the right is the Museum’s beloved Morenosaurus, an aquatic reptile that the PFP is re-mounting.
The journey that a fossil takes before exhibit is rarely a short
one. After Dr. Luis Chiappe, director of the Natural History
Museum’s Dinosaur Institute, excavated a young adult T. rex in
southeastern Montana between 2003 and 2005, the specimen
came back to Los Angeles. It spent several months in a new
exhibit built and named specifically for it — the Thomas the
T. rex Lab — where Museum visitors watched as preparators
worked on the 66-million-year-old specimen in a transparent
paleontological lab.
After the specimen was prepared, it was time to mount. For that
leg of the process, the destination was New Jersey. Packed into
special crates, the fossils headed to Jersey-based Phil Fraley
Productions (PFP), the exhibit fabrication company responsible
for a legacy of iconic fossil mounts, including those in the
renovated Fossil Halls at the American Museum of Natural
History and the Field Museum’s Tyrannosaurus rex named “Sue.”
For the Natural History Museum, PFP is working on a slew of
mounts. Some have appeared in the NHM before, some will
make their debuts soon. In addition to Thomas, the company is
restoring and remounting the giant aquatic carnivore
Morenosaurus, which once hung in the Mesozoic Hall, and the
beloved fin whale specimen, which first appeared in Museum
in the 1940s.
The Upcoming T. rex Growth Series
There are always challenges in Fraley’s trade: missing fossil
pieces; debates about proper posture; material thought to be
robust that actually falls apart in your hands. None of these
were quite the case with the young T. rex. “With Thomas, we’re
getting something that’s very well prepared,” Fraley says,
referring to the time the specimen spent in the Museum’s
in-house lab. “What we are finding, because of the fossilization,
was that Thomas was really squished.”
The animal’s pelvic girdle was particularly fragile, so instead of
mounting it in a way that gravity would push up against it,
Fraley’s team turned it into a horizontal specimen, neutral in
space, so the specimen would be able to withstand the position.
NATURALIST 11
It’s not a casket, not exactly. After de-installing old mounts, the PFP team crates the Museum’s precious fossils and moves them to a waiting truck bound for studios in New Jersey and
Pittsburgh. In the foreground is the Exposition Park Rose Garden.
“Deciding on posture is a shared responsibility between us and
clients, and what drives it is the condition of the bone material
— what the bones will be able to handle.”
What’s unique about the NHM’s growth series, the centerpiece
of one of the Dinosaur Mysteries galleries, is that it isn’t just a
line-up of different-aged T. rexes: It’s a story that inspires several
different questions. In it are three specimens — a baby, a
juvenile, and the sub-adult Thomas. They surround, and
presumably are about to feast upon, a carcass. “We’re trying to
create a moment in time, a sense of drama and intersection,”
Fraley says.
And in addition to visually understanding how these creatures
grew, visitors might contemplate questions such as how young
and older dinosaurs related to each other, whether T. rexes were
hunters or scavengers, prone to travel in pods or solo, and in
relation to the story that comes alive in the growth series, who
12 DEC09/JAN10
killed the prey, and who will pounce first. “Of course a lot of
these questions can never be answered and at this point in
time, we have more questions that what we have answers. But
that to me is inspirational because it allows for the possibility
that someone can come along and answer these questions at
another point.”point.”
The Story Behind the Specimens
Besides the story of what the T. rex trio is up to, there’s the story
of the science behind them. “What we’re attempting
to show people throughout the galleries is exactly how science
is done,” Fraley explains. “How a researcher like Luis spends
his time in the field, collecting, coming back, and then how
we begin to take all these disassociated parts and put
them together based on our research and knowledge of
other species.”
“It’s creating a transparency in science,” he continues, “so we
aren’t misleading the museum visitor and saying to them, ‘This
is what we found, this is what we know, this is how we came to
do this reconstruction.’ Instead, we’re saying ‘This is our best
educated guess. It doesn’t necessarily mean we are correct,
and maybe we’ll have a visitor who will have another answer
or conclusion. But that’s what the whole process of science
is about — the continuing experimentation and acquisition
of knowledge.”
Fraley is also conserving, restoring the Morenosaurus from the
old Mesozoic Hall, and re-mounting it into a more dynamic
pose. This is a specimen close to the Museum’s heart:
Morenosaurus stocki was found in Fresno County, and soon, it
will appear in a gallery that explores rare terrestrial and marine
creatures from California. This particular species was first
named by Samuel Welles in 1943, incidentally, in honor of
beloved Museum paleontologist Dr. Chester Stock. Fraley says
its old pose was too “similar to Nessie,” not boding well
for authenticity.
Center. In early 2007, the Museum hired Fraley to de-install the
7,000-pound skeleton — found in the 1920s and mounted in
1944 with technology for which there was no remaining
documentation. Fraley’s team gingerly took it down, and the
approximately 220 bones eventually journeyed east to
his studio.
The whale will be remounted in one of the newly restored 1913
Building’s three wings. Few museums have them, and even
fewer the space to exhibit them. It will represent one of the best
and most complete large whale articulations in the world.
“I can’t wait for people to see it,” Fraley says. “I was so blown
away by that specimen. It looked like it wanted to swim out
of the room.”
By mid 2010, it will swim again. And the following year, the
residents of Dinosaur Mysteries will be unveiled. “Once these
galleries are completed,” Fraley says, “you’ll see a collection
that‘s unsurpassable in the western United States.”
—Kristin Friedrich, [email protected]
The fin whale is shown here hanging in what used to be the Discovery Center. In early 2007, the PFP team de-installed the 7,000-pound specimen to make room for 1913 Building’s
Photo © Ryan Miller/Capture Imaging
renovations. The whale is scheduled to “swim” again, though re-mounted this time in a different gallery.
NATURALIST 13
THINGS TO DO AT THE MUSEUMS
FIRST FRIDAYS*
NO PLACE LIKE HOME:
THE SCIENCE OF SOUTHERN CALIFORNIA
Friday, Jan. 8, 5:30-10 pm
Natural History Museum of Los Angeles County
Southern California often gets a bad rap, but First Fridays is here to defend it. The provocative
series — in which live music, discussion and custom curatorial tours blend in an after-hours event
— returns this month. This season, six of the region’s top scientists will be discussing the cutting
edge of science on issues of importance to Southern Californians and the rest of the world, both
today and into the future. This evening features an expert on spider engineering feats, Dr. Cheryl
Y. Hayashi. Visit www.nhm.org.
*Because of the New Year holidays, this “First Friday” is actually the second Friday of the month, Jan. 8.
COWBOYS AND CAROLS
Saturday, Dec. 5, time TBD
Join us in a celebration of silent movie
cowboy Bill Hart’s 145th birthday, during an
evening of entertainment, refreshments,
and company in the enchanting Hart Museum. Ticket reservations are required and can
be made at (661) 254-4584. Ticket price: TBD
SCAVENGER’S SAFARI:
DINOSAUR ENCOUNTERS BACKSTAGE
Sunday, Dec. 6, 11 am
Get special backstage access as the Dinosaur puppeteers take you behind-the-scenes
of Dinosaur Encounters. The puppeteers
will show you how to move and think like
a dinosaur. Scavenger’s Safaris are free with
Patron level membership ($185 annually). To
RSVP, call (213) 763-3316.
CRITTER CLUB:
COLD WEATHER QUEST
Saturday, Dec. 12, 10 and 11 am
Birds fly south for the winter, but what
do turtles do? Help us find winter habitats
for our animal friends. Critter Club is
hands-on fun!
CRITTER CLUB:
CRITTER COMMOTION!
Saturday, Jan. 9, 10 and 11 am
Hey 3-5 year olds, this club’s for you! Hiss!
Chirp! Croak! Who makes these sounds?
Let’s meet some noisy animals, and make
some commotion of our own!
14 DEC09/JAN10
For 3-5 year olds and a participating adult.
Free with paid Museum admission. No reservations required, but class sizes are limited.
Check in at the Dueling Dinosaurs just inside
the main entrance. More information at
(213) 763-3230.
SCAVENGER’S SAFARI:
CONCHES, COWRIES
AND CLAMS, OH MY!
Saturday, Jan. 16, 11 am
Join Malacology Collections Manager
Lindsey Groves for a behind-the-scenes tour
of one of the largest collections of mollusks
in the nation. This tour will feature rare and
common species, large and small varieties,
and weird and bizarre forms. Scavenger’s
Safaris are free with Patron level membership
($185 annually). To RSVP, call (213) 763-3316.
JUNIOR SCIENTIST:
THE ABC’S OF
ANTHROPOLOGY
Saturday, Jan. 23, 10:30 am and 2:30pm
Join us to explore the fundamental questions of anthropology and studying
artifacts. What was this object used for?
Who made it? How was it created? Become
a Junior Anthropologist and learn how
the Natural History Museum explores our
cultural world through asking questions and
making observations! Junior Scientist is for
6-9 year-olds and their families. All programs
are FREE with paid Museum admission. No
reservations are required, but class sizes are
limited. Please check in at the Dueling Dinosaurs just inside the main entrance. For more
information about Junior Scientist, visit our
website www.nhm.org
SUSTAINABLE SUNDAYS
Sunday, Jan. 24, 9:30 am – 3:30 pm
Sustainable Sundays is back again — this
month we talk to the groups who are at the
forefront of making changes with the way
we use and view our land in and around Los
Angeles. Take in a special performance of
the HumAnimals and learn how Southern
California animals share their habitats with
humans. Redefine Exposition Park with
James Rojas’ interactive model. Join local
artist Marissa Johnen as she helps you
use inspiration from the Mammal Halls to
create your own diorama with “Trash for
Teaching” supplies. Visit www.nhm.org for
more information.
ART + SCIENCE DAY =
THE HIDDEN WORLD
Saturday, Jan. 30, 2010
What is hidden from the human eye? Come
find out as we show you a variety of life
forms photographed through a high-powered SEM (scanning electron microscope)
and get acquainted with the microscopic
world. Ever wondered what a virus looks
like? Make a (safe) one yourself to take
home. Plus, guest artist Jason Hackenwerth
is on hand to create “megamite” sculptures
out of micro-organisms — his medium is
balloons, but you’ll be surprised by his
MUSEUM OVERNIGHTS
ongoing at NHM
DINO LAB
talent! Visit www.nhm.org for program
details, or www.jasonhackenwerth.com to see
Jason’s work.
Spots available now!
Ever wonder what happens in the Museum
at night? After we tour galleries and check
out some of the Museum’s coolest objects
and specimens, we’ll fall asleep surrounded
by animals in our diorama halls. Bring your
sleeping bag, air mattress and flashlight;
snack and light breakfast are provided for all
participants. Spots available for groups
10 or more. Adult to child ratio is 1:6. All
participants must be at least five years old.
For more information, call (213) 763-3536 or
visit nhm.org.
Monday and Tuesday
Open now on Level 2
For a true behind-the-scenes experience,
come witness the exciting dinosaur preparation process in the Level 2 Dino Lab. Sneak a
peek at real fossils and see our staff working
on the day-to-day details of fossil
preparation in anticipation of our new
Dinosaur Mysteries galleries, opening in 2011.
Everything you see in the lab is real. And,
in case you’re itching to make first-hand
contact with some of these incredible fossils
yourself, we’ve provided a footprint and toe
bone of a T. rex — real fossils that you can
actually touch, 66 and 120 million years old,
respectively. Visit www.nhm.org for
more details.
9:30 - 10 am:
11:30 am - 12 pm
2 - 2:30 pm
3:30 - 4 pm
Film screening:
The Making of “Our L.A. Basin”
Get a behind-the-scenes look at the high school artists who created this exciting exhibition.
Inter/Act Gallery, Level 1
(adjacent to the American History Hall)
12:30 pm: Story Time
Join us for an interactive story time for children.
2 pm: Gallery Exploration Tour
Join a Gallery Interpreter for this in-depth exploration of the Museum’s galleries.
Meet at the Dueling Dinos, Level 1
3 pm: LIVE Animal Presentation
Meet our amazing, living animals to learn
where they come from, what they eat,
and more!
Wednesday through Friday
9:30 - 10 am:
11:30 am - 12 pm
2 - 2:30 pm
3:30 - 4 pm
Film screening:
The Making of “Our L.A. Basin”
See film details on Monday.
Inter/Act Gallery, Level 1
(adjacent to the American History Hall)
10 am, 11:30 am: Dinosaur Encounters
Get closer to dinosaurs than you ever
2:30 pm
thought possible! North American Mammal Hall, Level 2
10:30 am: Hop, Slither and Stalk
This is an interactive kinesthetic program featuring
the performance artists in animal costumes made
of recycled materials all about life in the wild. It is
for 3-8 year olds, and incorporates CA science and
art curriculum standards for Grades Pre-K-2.
All presentations are in the North American
Mammal Hall, Level 2.
December 2009/January 2010
sun
mon
tues
wed
1
thurs
fri
2
3
sat
4
Cowboys
and Carols
5
12:30 pm: Story Time
See event description on Monday.
Inter/Act Gallery, Level 1
(adjacent to the American History Hall)
USC football 12:30 pm
6
7
Scavenger’s
Safari
13
8
Free Tuesday
9
10
11
With support from our
Corporate Partners
15
14
12
2 pm: Gallery Exploration Tour
See event description on Monday.
Meet at the Dueling Dinos, Level 1
Critter Club
16
18
17
19
20
22
21
23
24
25
26
Museums closed
29
28
30
1
31
2
New Year’s Day
Museums closed
3
4
5
Free Tuesday
6
7
With support from our
Corporate Partners
10
11
12
13
8
9
First Fridays
Critter Club
15
14
16
18
Martin
Luther King Day
19
20
22
21
24
25
31
26
27
Natural History Museum
Page Museum
30
Art + Science
Day
Hart Park and Museum
Event occurs offsite
Film screening:
The Making of “Our L.A. Basin”
See film details on Monday.
Inter/Act Gallery, Level 1
(adjacent to the American History Hall)
See Animal Presentation details on Monday.
11:30 am, 2:30 pm: Dinosaur Encounters
See event description on Monday.
3:30 pm
North American Mammal Hall, Level 2
12:30 pm: Story Time
See event description on Monday.
23
29
28
Museum provides parking at normal rates in nearby lot.
LOCATION KEY
9:30 - 10 am:
11:30 am - 12 pm
2 - 2:30 pm
3:30 - 4 pm
2 pm: Gallery Exploration Tour
See event description on Monday.
Meet at the Dueling Dinos, Level 1
Junior Scientist
Museums open
Sustainable
Sundays
See Animal Presentation details on Monday.
11 am, 3 pm: LIVE Animal Presentation
Scavenger’s
Safari
17
3 pm: LIVE Animal Presentation
Saturday and Sunday
Christmas Day
27
Dinosaur Encounters is supported in part by the
Dwight Stuart Youth Foundation.
ongoing at the page museum
Park Tour
Daily as staff permits: 1 pm
Page Museum Lobby
Gallery Adventure Tour
Weekend programs at the Natural History Museum are
supported by a major grant from Farmers Insurance Group.
Natural History Museum 900 Exposition Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90007 www.nhm.org 213-763-DINO
the page museum 5801 Wilshire Blvd., Los Angeles, CA 90036 www.tarpits.org 323-934-PAGE
the hart museum 24151 Newhall Ave., Newhall, CA 91321 www.hartmuseum.org 661-254-4584
Daily as staff permits: 2:15 pm
Page Museum Admission Desk
ongoing at the Hart Museum
Museum Tour
Wednesday-Friday: 10 am-12:30 pm (every half hour)
Weekends: 11 am-3:30 pm (every half hour)
NATURALIST 15