street theatre

Robotic, puppet and tape giraffes!

Posted by hil

Giraffe

Andrew at PuppetVision (now here) kindly told me about Make’s report on this huge robotic Electric Giraffe, aka Rave Raffe, a walking vehicle built by Lindsay Lawlor. It’s design follows the mechanism of a toy Tamiya giraffe:

The front and back legs opposite each other step ahead at the same time, propelled by an electric motor. When those legs land, hydraulic brakes lock the wheeled feet, and the other two legs take a step. Canting from side to side, Raffe lumbers ahead at about a mile an hour. A propane engine runs only to recharge the batteries, so the beast is quiet and efficient. When Lawlor let Raffe shuffle off alone in the desert, it walked for eight hours.
— Popular Science

You can follow the building process through to it’s completion in time for Burning Man 2005, when it fulfilled Lawlor’s original purpose, to see Burning Man from a height. The giraffe has done various gigs since then, most recently appearing at Maker Faire. (Still going 2014) Plans are now to add ‘computer-controlled flashing giraffe spots, an electroluminescent circulatory system and a gas grill’. :-)

Some other giraffes of note:

Welfare State International comes to an end

Posted by hil

John Fox, the artistic director of the renowned celebratory street theatre company, Welfare State International – ‘eyes on stalks, not bums on seats” – explains how bureacracy kills the creative spirit, and why he is going solo.

‘The final straw? The ‘hot work’ permit for a bonfire in a field.
Had we swept the floor, and were the overhead sprinklers working?’

Welfare State came to an end on April Fools’ Day this year, after 38 years.

Emmanuel Bourgeau: sculpting the Sultan’s Elephant

Posted by hil

Emmanuel Bourgeau

The find of my week was the discovery that Emmanuel Bourgeau, a sculptor in Plogonnec, has a small gallery of photos (> la gasette de l’atelier>Septembre 2004 – mai 2005: un elepahant et une petite geante) 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).

Updated links 2015

Photos of the Sultan’s Elephant starting to come in

Posted by hil

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 (edited Oct 2014 – link now defunct).

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

Erth’s roaming dinosaurs

Posted by hil

Erth‘s impressive Gondwana dinosaur puppets have been doing some roaming street theatre gigs. Here are some photographs of them at WOMAD, Adelaide’s world music festival, in March. These were taken by John King, and are used with his permission.

gondwana_dinosaur_puppet_3

gondwana_dinosaur_puppet_1

gondwana_dinosaur_puppet_2

(copyright: John King)

At Flickr, Georgie Sharp also has two cool photos of her encounter with them. I think they also roamed Melbourne during the recent Commonwealth Games.

Updated links 2015

The Sultan’s Elephant coming to London in May

Posted by hil

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 thearea 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.

Updated links 2015

Fruit Batman

Posted by hil

Wingsspread

Making this huge Fruit Batman character for The Fool Factory has been the thing keeping me so busy last month. The wingspan is 6-7 metres, and it is a stilt-walking character. The wings are articulated, and it has animatronic eyes and ears, but it was my brief to build the creature around those supplied elements. He is now in Adelaide, doing some performances in the streets during the Fringe Festival.

I’ve made a set of photos that show some of the making process. And there are some more stills and a couple of quicktimes on the Fool Factory’s new site. I was particularly happy with the head:

Finishedhead


Shaun Tan’s website and Aquasapiens

Posted by hil

aqua51

Shaun Tan now has his own website. It looks relatively new. It’s great to see a number of illustrations under each picture book listing, and read his thoughtful and friendly commentary. I was also delighted to see some images from the puppetry-based theatre production of The Red Tree, which was produced as part of the Queensland Performing Arts Centre’s ‘Out of the Box’ festival for children in 2004. I had heard about this wonderful fish puppet on the grapevine. There are also some in-theatre pictures of some of our puppets for Jigsaw Theatre’s production of The Lost Thing.

One project that was unknown to me before, is Aquasapiens. Tan was commissioned by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre in Fremantle, WA, to design large-scale puppets for a street theatre event as part of the 2005 Perth International Arts Festival. The director was Philip Mitchell, the puppet maker Jiri Zmitko and sound designer/composer Lee Buddle. These creatures are fabulous! Here are drawings of the Yellow Naut‘ and ‘Shrimpy’. I also love this.

Aquasapiens is going to be part of the Adelaide Fringe in February and March, and is available to perform at schools from February 27 to March 10.

Apparently Spare Parts will also be adapting another of Tan’s books, The Arrival, which is about migration and is due to be published in April.

updated links 2015

Catching up with Floriade

Posted by hil

Rock & Roll Rascals: Big Bad Teddy and Long Tall Sally

The Fool Factory‘s Rock & Roll Rascals, Big Bad Ted and Long Tall Sally rock it up during this year’s Floriade in Canberra. I made Ted’s winklepickers and Sal’s legs and shoes.