Drawing for today
puppetry
Upside down! Upside down!
I get a lot of interest in my photos of Mr. Squiggle and friends, so I thought people might like to see the squiggle that Mr. Squiggle (aka Norman Hetherington) drew for me personally at the Puppet Summit in Melbourne in 2002. I guess over the years he has drawn them for many people!
Disfarmer
Mimi mentioned seeing Dan Hurlin‘s tabletop puppet show Disfarmer when she was in NYC recently. It’s described as
a puppet theater inspired by the life of American portrait photographer Mike Disfarmer (1884-1959). Something of a small town “Boo Radley,” Disfarmer operated a photography studio in Heber Springs, Arkansas, where for years locals and tourists lined up to have their picture made.
In the press kit one gets more of an idea of how Hurlin has interpreted the character, and why he chose the medium of puppetry: because both the photos and puppets are ‘inanimate objects whose inner lives are supplied by the insistence of the audiences imagination’.
I love the detailed movement and expressions in the behind-the-scenes video above, and the way in which you very naturally accept the puppeteer’s hands as the puppet’s at times. And the way the things like the clock just appear when they are needed.
Update:
Here is a cool work-in-progress excerpt which allows you to see the puppet’s construction, to a degree:
La Princesse
This great spider is one of the newest creatures by the French company, La Machine (that I posted about a few days ago). Known as la Princesse, her performance in the streets of Liverpool, England, last September was a highlight of the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations there. She was commissioned by Artichoke, the company who brought Royal de Luxe‘s Sultan’s Elephant to London a few years ago.
A giant spider conjures up dramatic visions of Shelob, huge rearing fangs, giant trapdoors, buildings being webbed in, or the populace being picked off one by one and spun into food parcels, tasty morsels for later. But in one of the BBC videos, her creator, Francois Delaroziere, described the emotion he wanted to provoke as ‘sweet and in love’.
There are squillions of photos of la Princesse online now; here a few links as starters:
Flickr pool
La Machine’s webpage on the event
Main BBC webpage (portal) about the event
Revealed: The secrets of the 50ft robo-spider – ‘There is never a dull moment in Liverpool’ :)
The terracotta warrior and the girl
This giant marionette performance was presented at the Beijing Olympics last year by the pharmaceutical company Johnson & Johnson. It derives directly from Royal de Luxe’s giant puppets, but the story is about a Chinese girl and a butterfly awakening one of the terracotta warriors. If you dig down in Johnson & Johnson’s site, you can see the trailer, the story board and some cool photos of how the puppets were made. The tie to the theme of J&J caring seems somewhat tenuous to me, but never mind!
The companies Poetic Kinetics and AiRealistic who were commissioned to design and develop the puppets and rig, both have interesting galleries of the process. And Bankai has a Flickr photoset.
Riding the giant elephant
I’ve been fascinated by the huge puppets instigated by Royal de Luxe for several years now, so while we were in France we went to Nantes to ride their huge sister elephant at Les Machines de I’ile, and to see all the other wonderful semi-fantasy creatures in their emerging menagerie. It was wonderful – if you get a chance, go!
Revitalizing the old shipyards on I’ile de Nantes, Les Machines de I’ile really is a glorious and grand folly in the best sense of the word, flights of fancy made real. We rounded the corner of the building and there was the elephant, absolutely enormous – it’s 12 metres high! – gently swinging its trunk and wafting its ears, and blinking, as it waited to take it’s next walk around the docklands. From upstairs above the workshops, at the same level as the elephant’s head, we could see the construction and carving close up, and get some idea of the massive mechanics that make it able to move.
Our ride boarded via airplane steps further along the route, and we climbed up to the balcony built into the elephants’ side. The doors into its tummy are decorated with curly turrets and carved animal heads. Inside there is a spiral staircase up to the platform on top, where passengers can look out in all directions, try to work out the mechs in the neck and ears, adopt Titanic-like poses at the front, and waggle the elephant’s tail at the back via a lever that pulls a cable connecting all the segments of the tail! Every now and then the elephant trumpets, and if you are lucky you can operate that from inside it’s belly. I rather suspect they like to keep how it is done a secret, but it’s hands-on and not hi-tech! More often the trunk whooshes steam and water.
The promenade is satisfyingly long – 45 minutes, and it didn’t matter at all to me that perambulating along at 1/4 km per hour you don’t actually cover much distance.
After our ride, we walked out along the steel pole and wood paneling branches that are a prototype for the enormous heron tree that is planned. Hanging along each branch are boxes of plants, the idea being that in time they will provide the greenery of the tree. Extensive research has gone into finding the right kinds of plants, since they have to survive on little water, and in quite an exposed position.
The various models of the whole tree are amazing masses of wire and wood!
I’ve previously posted about the various ride-on creatures that are being built for the emerging Marine Worlds Gallery, and there are lots of photos of them now at Flickr. Since then the Giant Crab, the Bus of the Abyss, and the Storm Boat have been added, and there are some photos of those in my Flickr set.
Outside the workshops is a small carousel roundabout, also with wonderfully unusual creatures to ride – my favourite was a rearing stag beetle. I have lots of photos of these, too, but I think they can wait till another day.
Matchstick puppets!
Lea Redmond’s Leafcutter Designs conceptual art projects, which tend to the miniature and whimsical, include matchbox theatre kits with teeny tiny matchstick puppets!
Kenny Koala
Constable Kenny Koala has been working out over summer and is looking like a new koala! Do you like his spiffy new jacket and cap? Kenny is a much loved community liason officer with the Australian Federal Police, and has been educating children in Canberra on a range of crime prevention and child safety messages for the last 25 years or more.
Erth: The Nargun and the Stars
I wanted to see Erth‘s lastest production, The Nargun and the Stars, at the Sydney Festival last week, but somehow didn’t make it. I have fond memories of the book, written by Patricia Wrightson, and the puppets, designed by Bryony Anderson, look great. The show is now heading for a 2-week season at the Perth International Arts Festival 2009, starting in mid February; so I hope some time it will come to Canberra.
