Ian Sharpe’s comment on the latest development in the travesty of justice that is David Hicks’ lot.
Million Puppet Project
It’s a bit crazy, even scary, to imagine a million puppets of all sorts in one place, but that’s the object of the Million Puppet Project which was launched yesterday (on World Puppetry Day) by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in Western Australia. Under the project, people from around the world are invited to make and send a puppet to Perth, WA, to participate in a new Guinness World Record: The World’s Largest Puppet Display! This will be part of the UNIMA 2008 :: 20th UNIMA Congress and World Puppetry Festival, which is being held in the southern hemisphere for the first time.
If you need a jumpstart to make a puppet, there are various simple puppet design templates ready to dowload, or you can strike out on a design all your own. Let your imagination run free! Puppets will not be able to be returned to you, but they will be donated to charities afterwards. And when the display is being finalized in April 2008, you will be able to see the installation in progress via a web cam linked to the site.
Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience: a review
I finally caught up with Walking with Dinosaurs: the Live Experience during its season in Adelaide. The dinosaurs are absolutely fabulous; huge realistic reptiles with fluid movement, thunderous roars, grunts and lowing, and where appropriate, menace. To achieve this live on such a grand scale is impressive, and represents a great pooling of skills in the Creature Design and Build Team: design, engineering, mechanics, skin and sculptural fabrication, technical management and direction. I loved the vegetation that grew up around the arena, and flowered brilliantly; the stage elements that sprouted trees or in turn became volcanoes; and the lighting.
The show is a documentary in the round, or a live newsreel. A paleontologist provides commentary throughout the performance, taking the audience through the various ages of the dinosaurs, pointing out their features, and making the odd joke. Although I saw the need for this as a device to make the show cohesive, and as a way of giving an idea of the sheer size of the creatures, I found it annoying to be ‘educated’ constantly, especially when at times he had to almost shout to be heard over swelling music. Although the dinosaurs threaten each other and have great stand-offs, and at times are wonderfully fierce, the show lacks the emotional content that I think marks great theatre or puppetry; we are instead essentially watching a passing parade of specimens, and observing how they behave.
Perhaps, though, it’s just me, as I am dispassionate about dinosaurs, while the phenomenal popularity of the BBC’s Walking with Dinosaurs documentary series suggests most people are not. The producers picked up on that popularity as the impetus for the live show. They know where their audience is – families, especially those with kids aged about 4 through 12 – and everyone coming out of the stadium seemed happy. I imagine it will continue its success overseas, and I believe there is a second round of dinosaurs now going into production.
More links:
891 ABC Adelaide: Walking with Dinosaurs: Some details and pics about how they are operated :)
SMH: walk among the giants, but hold tight!: Short interview with the puppetry director, Mat McCoy. (cool to see your move to direction, Mat)
‘Making of’ pages from the program: 1, 2
Babushka’s WwD Flickr photoset: some backstage close-up photography
Hangingpixel’s WwD Flickr photoset
YouTube WwD videos
The Age video report: behind the scenes glimpses; Angela Dufty, one of the drivers, explains how they are controlled. (try IE if it won’t play on Firefox)
Previously:
Walking with Dinosaurs: the Live Experience: new slideshow
Workshop footage,
Walking with Dinosaurs: The Live Experience
Ten Days on Earth: a real treat
(Honeydog awaiting his pink cranberry! waistcoat. Photo credit: Attit Patel, Toronto Life)
I caught Ronnie Burkett’s 10 Days on Earth up in Sydney last week, and it is a real treat. If you get a chance to see it, go!
The story is about Darrel, who is middle-aged and simple. His life revolves around his elderly mother, with whom he lives and on whom he is dependent, and various friends he regularly meets on his way to work as a shoe-shine boy. At the beginning of the play his mother dies, and we follow his gradual realization of what has happened, interspersed with flashbacks to other times in his life.
But there is also a play within a play, as, from time to time, Burkett reveals a separate smaller stage to tell the comic story of Honeydog and Little Burb, Darrel’s all-time favourite picture book. Honeydog’s search for an understanding of family and home gives Darrel his inner reality and context in life, including, at the end, an understanding of what has happened to his mother, and how life can continue. In other words, it’s beautifully scripted, as well as being wonderfully made and performed.
We stayed for Ronnie’s talk after the show, and it was a pleasure to hear him chat about the ideas behind the show, and many aspects of his work. He covers some of the same ground in Margaret Throsby’s interview with him on Thursday 22 Feb. I don’t know how long this interview will be available, so here is a back up. John Lambert has an excellent Ronnie Burkett page, which has reviews, technical details of the staging, a photo gallery, and a visit to the studio. I especially liked Liz Nicholl’s review, because it mentions Honeydog and his companions more than others. I also enjoyed Bryce Hallet’s account in the SMH.
