Spirits Dancing » sultan’s elephant

Les Machines de l’île de Nantes

Hil — Tue, 03 Jul 2007 22:11:46 +0000

Thanks to Darthbob from Laprise.org who recently alerted me to a new project related to Royal de Luxe, Les Machines de l’île de Nantes, which opened over this last weekend.

Planned as a new artistic, cultural and tourist venture, and part of an urban renewal of the docklands, it consists of numerous large mechanical creatures to build dreams around, imagined by François Delarozière and Pierre Orefice. They are installed in the great naves of the old shipyards on the island of Nantes, France.

First, there is a great elephant, similar to the Sultan’s, but a bit bigger at 12 metres high, which can take 30 passengers on its back for a 30 minute journey. It will journey every day.

Then there will be a huge tree, with branches that you can walk within. In time there will be herons in the tree, and people will be able to take rides in baskets below their wings.

The third part is a gallery of imagined machinical marine creatures, also rideable:

Le Luminaire des grands fonds:

(photo credit: Claude Joannis)

La Larve de crabe:

(photo credit: Claude Joannis)

Le Poisson pirate:

(photo credit: Claude Joannis)

Le Calamar à rétropropulsion:

(photo credit: Claude Joannis)

La Raie manta:

(photo credit: Claude Joannis)

I think there is also a royal crab planned.

More Royal de Luxe

Hil — Fri, 29 Sep 2006 09:36:29 +0000

I’ve been keeping a list of Royal de Luxe links since I first became aware of them last June. This weekend I believe The Sultan’s Elephant is in Calais, and then in La Havre at the end of October (26 – 29th).

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.

Meanwhile, some lovely Royal de Luxe photos at Flickr:

Le Grand Géant in the water at Pont Du Gard in August (by krisyid)
The Giraffes in Le Harve earlier in September (by jeffreyhill)
Machines of Spectacle at Le Grand Repertoire in Paris (by Tekrotzen)
Most recent Royal de Luxe photos

Sultan’s Elephant: Antwerp

Hil — Sat, 08 Jul 2006 10:21:43 +0000

Royal de Luxe’s four-day street spectacle, The Sultan’s Elephant, is in Antwerp, Belgium, this weekend. Here is a link back to my collected of links about them, to which I will be adding the following:

Official Anterp site (via)
Flickr photo pool for the Sultan’s Elephant in Antwerp
Ongoing Royal de Luxe delicious links, as I find them.

Incidentally, here is a gorgeous little movie of edited sequences put to music, from the appearence in London.

Emmanuel Bourgeau: sculpting the Sultan’s Elephant

Hil — Sun, 14 May 2006 00:20:52 +0000

The find of my week was the discovery that Emmanuel Bourgeau, a sculptor in Plogonnec, has a small gallery of photos of the construction and carving of the huge elephant and girl in Royal
de Luxe’s spectacle, The Sultan’s Elephant, which paraded the streets of
London last week. Isn’t the net wonderful? I’ve added this link to my collected Royal de Luxe links.

(Via Royal de Luxe).

Photos of the Sultan’s Elephant starting to come in

Hil — Fri, 05 May 2006 22:48:55 +0000

There is a Flickr pool for photos of the Sultan’s Elephant, the Royal de Luxe street theatre spectacle happening in London right now and over this weekend. The official website gallery is also starting to post photos. The BBC coverage looks as if its going to be good too – I’m hoping to see it on one of the webcams!

I’ll be adding links that I find to my previous collection of links as I get time, but you can also see more immediately what I am finding by checking my del.icio.us/royaldeluxe tag. Or you could subscribe to it’s rss feed.

Upadate: wonderful footage of the elephant, taken by Mike. (via Boing Boing)

The Sultan’s Elephant coming to London in May

Hil — Fri, 21 Apr 2006 12:04:06 +0000

Royal de Luxe’s wonderful spectacle, The Sultan’s Elephant, is coming to London from 4th – 7th May, brought to you by Artichoke. It will take place in the streets and public spaces of Westminster, in the
area around Horse Guards Parade in St James’s Park, St James’s,
Piccadilly, Haymarket and Trafalgar Square. There is a new promotional website for London, The Sultan’s Elephant. Thanks to Elfie for letting me know.

Update: I’ve added this to my previous links, and started updating there. Might as well keep it all in one place. I’ll keep tracking links there as the London spectacle develops.

Tags: puppetry, puppets,
Royal de Luxe, elephant, giantess, London, sultan, France, sultan’s elephant, sultanselephant, street theatre

Royal de Luxe: The elephant and the small giantess

Hil — Sat, 11 Jun 2005 15:55:10 +0000

Update: I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and it’s influence since this post. Click here to go to search links to all those posts.

——————————–

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

Hugues Allart’s gallery

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