(Photo credit: anthonyung. Thanks for the CC licence. Click to enlarge)
This magnificent tiger puppet was one of the highlights of the recent Chinese New Year Twilight Parade celebrations in Sydney. Videos at the ABC, and on YouTube show it in action, and e_yew at Flickr has a close-up of the tiger’s head.
The 3.5 metre tall City of Sydney float is operated by nine puppeteers and has an audio system in its belly to make it roar and purr.
Constructed from found and recycled materials, the float celebrates the Year of the Metal Tiger and is a symbol of City of Sydney’s commitment to sustainability.
The Metal Tiger was built by renowned prop maker Erth and its parts include vacuum cleaners, take-away food containers, aluminium cans, bicycle parts, grid iron and hockey guards, pool noodles, old speaker boxes, kitchenware, hub caps and motorbike components.
The float will be adorned with 100m of LED bud lighting, 90 metres of rope light, and tips the scales at approximately 300kg.
Celebrations are taking place in Berlin this weekend for the 20th anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall and the re-unification of Germany. At the centre of the celebrations is a 4-day performance by Royal de Luxe‘s giant street theatre puppets, featuring their little giantess, and her giant uncle, the deep-sea diver.
Berlin was once a swamp inhabited by giants. One day, land and sea monsters tore the city in two and the Big Giant and Little Giantess were separated. The Little Giantess fell into a long sleep. When she awakes, she finds a large old mailbag containing letters between East and West Berlin, and sets out to deliver them. After each searching the streets of the city, the two giants are reunited and symbolically return tens of thousands of letters once intercepted by former East Germany’s Stasi secret police to people watching their procession through the city.
Photos and videos are starting to appear at Flickr and YouTube, and many others will follow, but here are some links to items that have grabbed my attention so far:
I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and their influence on the genre of giant puppets over the last few years and you can search here to go to those posts.
This fabulous giant Pinóquio puppet premiered last weekend at the Imaginarious Festival in Santa Maria da Feira in a street theatre production called The fantastic history of a child called Pinóquio by the theatre company Trigo Limpo ACERT. They come from Tondela, a small town in the centre of Portugal.
The choice of Pinocchio, the classic tale of a wooden boy who wants to become human, is particularly pleasing, because it reflects the puppeteers’ conceit of being able to bring inanimate things to life. And he looks beautifully articulated – I really like the way his leg and foot can turn and rest in his signature stance.
The character was sculpted by Carles of Madrid and Nico Nubiola of Taller de escultura De la Madrid & Nubiola, both of whom were involved with the production of the opening ceremony for the Barcelona Olympics. They have a cool video of how they made Pinóquio:
Remember the little elephant and boy puppets I was working on last year? Here are some pictures of how they turned out. They were for the Flying Fruitfly Circus production The Promise, which premiered at the Sydney Festival about a month ago. The build for the show was quite big, and largely undertaken by Tim Denton and Annie Forbes in Melbourne, but I was asked to make these little ones and a life-size elephant trunk (more of the trunk soon in another post). The designer was Richard Jeziorny, whom I really like working with.
It’s part of the business that directors sometimes need to alter significantly or completely cut scenes and props, and in this case the elephant was altered or remade in Melbourne so that it could have more head movement than the original design. I was given the opportunity to do it, but couldn’t take it on at the time. It looks from this picture as if it was covered and the head possibly remade completely.
The production received great reviews such as this at the Australian Stage Online. I’d like to see it one day if they tour up this way.
My interest was piqued by photo #32 in the Big Picture’s post about Carnival. It’s an impressive dragon puppet float that took to the streets in the Nice Carnival recently. I don’t know who made it, but there are resonances with Royal de Luxe’s giant puppets, for instance the carving of the head, elements of the construction and operation and the way it breathes smoke.
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:
A mindblowing day at the puppet carnival: see my Flickr photoset for heaps more photos; I’ve just chosen a few here. Also Naomi and Gary have more, too, each a different take :). As far as I can see its just the three of us blogging from Unima 2008.
Cheryl Linnaker’s Yawaru gecko
Joan Baixas’ masterclass present the ‘Great Laughing Mutant Project’
Hersute Monsiour Telefon, the puppet I put in the Million Puppet Project
Trans Faunas by Swerve Association
Perhaps one of the creatures by Edith Cowan University Contemporary Performing group?
Murphy’s Puppets Allenby’s FAMOUS Flea Circus
Swerve Association’s sheep
My attendence at Unima 2008 is supported by the ACT Government
Students from the Edith Cowan University Contemporary Performers Group, lead by Deborah Hunt entertained the lunchtime crowds in James Place, Perth, yesterday, as part of the UNIMA Worl Puppetry Festival. These made my day! By chance there was a busker playing, and they worked their activities in around what he was playing.
