Royal de Luxe: The elephant and the small giantess
Jun 11th, 2005 by Hil
I’m blown away by the French street theatre company Royal de Luxe’s amazing street parade, ‘The Visit of the Sultan of India Atop His Time-Travelling Elephant’, which took place in Nantes last week, in honour of the centenary of Jules Verne’s death. A rocket landed just outside the cathedral in place Saint Pierre, and from it a young giantess emerged. Together with the Sultan’s huge 11 metre tall elephant with a house built into its back, she explored the streets of Nantes, taking time to eat an icecream, ride a scooter, take a shower and nap, be lifted up onto the elephant’s trunk, and eventually to return to take off in her rocket again.
I’ve been collecting links! If you are short on time go to the ones with asterisks. I also have an ongoing Royal de Luxe links list at del.icio.us for links as I find them.
2007:
- The Sultan’s Elephant in Santiago, South America, late January, with a rhinoceros.
- The Sultan’s Elephant in Reykjavik, Iceland 10 - 12 May, with the little giantess’s father. Here is a great close up of his face.
- Les Machines de l’île de Nantes
- Some influences of Royal de Luxe, including a giant boy in Korea, dog puppet in Barcelona, giant girl in Chile, stencil art and photographs
2006:
- Le Grand Géant in the water at Pont Du Gard, August (by krisyid) (added 29 Sept 2006)
- The Giraffes in Le Harve, September (by jeffreyhill) (added 29 Sept 2006)
- Machines of Spectacle at Le Grand Repertoire in Paris (by Tekrotzen) (added 29 Sept 2006)
- Le Grand Repertoire photo pool at Flickr (added 29 Sept 2006)
- The producers who brought The Sultan’s Elephant
to London in June this year are bringing out a book of photos,
reminiscences and articles about the event which will be published in
November 2006. (added 29 Sept 2006)
The Sultan’s Elephant in Antwerp (added 8 July 2006)
The Sultan’s Elephant in London (added 21 Apr 2006)
- The Sultan’s Elephant
- Artichoke (company bringing TSE to London)
- BBC coverage, including webcams of various locations (added 2 May 2006)
- BBC photo gallery - you can send in your photos (added 2 May 2006)
- Short interview with promoter Helen Marriage in The Guardian
- About the London promotion
- Flickr group photo pool: The Sultan’s Elephant in London (added 5 May 2006)
- Wonderful video footage of the elephant by Mike
- At Boing Boing
- BBC video: the event begins
- BBC TV news video early on. Poor quality.
- Simon Crubellier’s exellent gallery*
- Sean McManus’s photos
- a gorgeous little movie of edited sequences put to music*
2005:
Nantes official site (in French):
Other photo galleries:
- Ian Flanigan: fabulous photos, video clips and commentary; technical gallery and commentary (very cool)*
- Nantes: actualite,archetecture, photo
- Agora Forum
- Winona
- Guillaume Gautier
- Assblaster: elephant in transit at night
- Christophe Routhieau(added 19 June 2005)
- EpiTaF (added 19 June 2005)
- La Prise.org: part 1 (added 19 June 2005); part 2 - details of the elephant (23 June); part 3 - this has cool video clips! (9 Nov) (thanks darth!)*
- Raphael
- Emmanuel Bourgeau: carving and construction photos take link from ‘la gazette de l’atelier’ page (link updated July 2007)*
At Flickr:
Blog entries:
- dirty beloved: great links about the company; thanks Ajax! I’ve included most but not all of them here
- jzw:1, 2 (include accounts by Ian Flanigan)*
Amiens:
- Eric Pouhier’s photo gallery (including some of the puppeteers/manipulators) added 19 June)
- Renaud’s Gallery (added 23 June 2005) - cool!
- Ch_P at Flickr (added 23 June 2005)
- 2005 Amiens photo gallery
About Royal de Luxe:About Royal de Luxe (French sites):
- VTi: A Short Introduction
- Royal de Luxe - not an official site, but pretty comprehensive - history, links to photos and reviews (thanks for the image above)* (updated link 2 June 2006)
- Royal de Luxe
- French Wikipedia entry
- 1995-2002 - Karen Maldonado
- Interview with Jean-Luc Courcoult, director (in Spanish)
- Interview with Jean-Luc Courcoult, dirctor (pdf in English)
- BBC Royal de Luxe photo gallery, from older productions (added 6 May 2006)
Royal de luxe at Wikipedia (added July 2007)
Machines of Spectacle
- Machines of Spectacle exhibition
‘Hunters of the Giraffes’ photo galleries:
‘The Giant’
- Photo gallery
- The small black giant (single image, added 19 June)
- single image by Jordi Bover
Catamini Attraction
Poster
- Royal de Luxe poster for sale (image on the right)
Tour dates:
2005:
- Nantes (France) - 22, 23, 24, 25 May. Debut.
- Amiens (France) - 16, 17, 18, 19 June
- La Havre - mid July (didn’t happen as far as I know)
- London (UK) - 8, 9, 10, 11 September. (I think this did not happen because of the London bombings)
2006: (only London confirmed as far as I know)
- London (UK) - 5, 6, 7, 8 May. See here for official website coverage.
- Antwerp (Belgium) - 6, 7, 8, 9 July
- Calais (France) - 28, 29, 30 Sept & 1 Oct
- La Havre (France) - 26, 27, 28, 29 Oct
- Paris, Bilbao, Marseilles, Valance possible
Thats is REALLY amazing!! I spent quite a while going through all those pictures. I’m sending this on to a friend of mine who will be in London in the fall.
I’ve alerted a net friend in London, too. He was asking me if I knew any more details, like times and locations, but I haven’t seen any yet. If anyone has, please do post a note here.
Hello !
I’m very surprised to see my articles about Royal de Luxe quoted in your blog !
I’m writing next chapters about the event in Nantes because i’ve a lot of photos and films. It’s an amazing company. Please, take a look at “la prise” in the future !
If you or your friends can be in a city where Royal de Luxe install the elephant and the little giant, run and stay all the week-end. It’s magic, funny, spectacular and crazy.
Bye
darth
Thanks for coming by, darth. I loved your photos and articles, and will be sure to check back to see future ones. Have you seen any of their other shows besides the Machines of Spectacle?
I’m sure that its not only the sheer size of these puppets that is impressive, but also (as with all puppetry) the skill in making them and their story come alive, so that we care about them. I liked Ian Flanigan’s comment: ‘It’s hard to believe without actually being there, but just watching her sleep fills you with emotion’, (though I would disagree with him saying that this makes them transcend ‘mere puppetry’, and say it is puppetry is really about). Its that emotional side that can’t fully be appreciated without being there, but its great to hear about it from those that have experienced it.
The Elephant and the Small Giantess
This is just neat. Make sure you click on the links to see the pictures….
Hello !
I have finished the second part of “Le sultan et l’éléphant” on La Prise. In this chapter you will see some details about the elephant (eye, ears, feet…). I hope you like it.
Next part : details about the artists !
bye
darth
Hi !
I was in Amiens and took some pictures :
http://renaud.lehoux.free.fr/gallery/
Hey darth and Renaud - thanks so much for these links; they are wonderful. As you can see I’v added them to the list. I’m looking forward to your next part about the artists, darth.
I am in USA, in Fargo, North Dakota to be exact. No chance of me seeing this in person, alas. So many, MANY thanks for your wonderful information, the best I have found on this. Does anyone know if Royal de Luxe has a website? I cannot find one…
here is a small blog written live during the event in Amiens.
Thank you Vincent :-).
Trish, I haven’t yet found an official website for Royal de Luxe.
Hello !
I have finished the third part of “Le sultan et l’éléphant” on La Prise. I have published some videos about “la petite geante”…
http://www.laprise.org/Le-sultan-et-son-elephant-Partie-3
It’s short and with some movements but i hope you like it…
i have a lot of short scene but no time to publish…
bye
darth
Thats fabulous! Thanks darth! I’ve added it to the others in the list. (Sorry I took a while to get to it.)
Hey everyone! I don’t know if anyone is going to read this as it’s been a long time but the show IS coming to London the 4, 5, 6 and 7th of may!
Come and see us!!!
http://www.thesultanselephant.com/home.php
(and Royal de Luxe unfortunately doesn’t have a website…)
Hi elfie,
Thanks so much for letting us know about the London gig. The new website you link to is cool as well - I’ll add it to the links!
Thanks so much for all the links and information - I’ve just spent four days following the Elephant and La Petite Géante around London. It’s the most fun I’ve had since I was a child.
Hi Simon, thanks for dropping by, and thanks for all the wonderful photos you took over the 4 days. I’d already been following your photo set. I’m glad you enjoyed the event so much! Congratulations on getting into the Flickr Blog, too. I’ll add your set of photos to my links, probably tomorrow. I’m interested you say there were religious aspects to it - I’d like to hear more about that.
Everyone must make an effeort to see this show! It’s incredible!!
This show is fantastic!! Absolutely amazing!
Are you being the giant puppet in iceland on you tube ?
Photo’s of ‘la visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps’
@ Calais :
http://www.flickr.com/groups/calais2006/
Feel free to add your own photos to the group…
Pense bête
Glad to see you enjoyed my photos ! ;) And thanks for sharing those links… As Nantes is my hometown, I was used to see their shows, to see everyone in the streets becoming childs again… I left the city 2/3 years ago and miss that feeling.