Radio National’s Bush Telegraph has audio of their April 23rd interview with Jillian Pearce (fast forward to the 36 minute mark). Jillian is a performance artist living in Natimuk, the small town at the foot of rock-climbing mecca, Mt Arapiles, in rural Victoria. Jillian and her performing arts company, Y Space, have for some years been doing exciting work with rock-climbers, dancers, animation and puppetry in ‘unusual and high places’, such as the Natimuk wheat silos, exploring images, stories and relationships with the space and land. Check out their past and present projects, and some of their video.
Actually, my favourite Sendak picture book is In the Night Kitchen. I love the illustration, the cityscape made from kitchen packets and utensils, the dreamlike whimsy of it, and Mickey’s confidence. Above all, I like the part where he models the dough into a plane:
What better way to describe how you go about the creative process? I was delighted to find this lovely video animation of the book, adapted and directed by Gene Dietch, complete with jaunty music:
Mentioning the Spike Jonze film adaptation of Where the Wild Things Are a few days ago reminded me that I had a bunch of WWTA/Sendak links that I collected when I was trying to scrounge information about the film. (As it happens they are keeping things very well under wraps, which is understandable.)
Take a Swim on the Wild Side: article about the filming taking place in Nov 2006 on the Mornington Peninsula, Victoria. There are two pictures of one of the monsters on the beach,and wading out in the water, but don’t get too excited – they are so tiny you can’t really make anything out! It describes the puppets (made by Henson) as follows:
The seven creatures stand up to 275 centimetres tall. Although made of foam, they are heavy and hot for the actors and stunt doubles operating them. Word is they wear them with the head on for no more than 30 minutes at a time, with 10 and 15-minute breaks in front of an air-conditioner… Heavy boots inside the suit and massive clawed hands make it difficult to move.
Loungelistener’s photoset of the performance of Where the Wild Things Are at Detroit Opera House, performed by the Grand Rapids Ballet. Some very cool picture of huge puppets on stage and behind the scenes.
Check it: a rap version of Wordsworth’s I wandered lonely as a cloud, with MC Nuts, aka Sam, the Lake District Red squirrel mascot for Ullswater Steamers. It’s to celebrate the bicentenary of the poem’s publication.
You might think I’m on a real anti-Howard bender today, especially since I’ve also just decided its time to stop posting to my Vigil blog, but I swear this video was found quite accidentally while I was trying out the newAlpha search engine (very cool). It’s such a good caricature, both in looks and voice, too funny to pass by (the ‘Go Aussie’ cracks me up!):
Once Upon a Coffee Cup is described as a A Greek-Australian fairy tale!, presented by The So-Called Elite, a group of ‘latte-drinking, chardonnay sipping, over-educated, under-achieving artists who have come together for the first time to perform in this year’s Melbourne International Comedy Festival’ under the direction of Matt Scholten and if theatre. It’s written and performed by Andrea Mina, Vaya Pashos & Shan Jayaweera. Show dates are April 17-28 2007, 6:30pm Evatt Room @ Trades Hall.Can anyone tell me who made the puppet?
Update: Thanks to Shan Jayaweera, the puppeteer behind the John Howard puppet, who contacted me to let me know a few more details! Shan hadn’t picked up a puppet until he did the one year puppetry course at the Victorian College of the Arts last year, but since then he has worked with Philippe Genty (visiting artist at the VCA), and with Spike Jonze (on the Where the Wild Things Are film adaptation).
The puppet in the Howard/Bush Brokeback parody was made by Shan, but he then got a classmate, Jemila McEwan, to re-do the head for Once upon a Coffee Cup. Jemila was a production student at VCA at the time, and did the puppet build
for the show they did with Genty.
And here are a couple of stills from their newsletter.
Steg
in the workshop. if you want an idea of HOW BIG this shows going to be, check out the size of the person working on the BABY brachi in the background (seen through Steg’s legs) … remember, he’s the BABY!
Ankylosaurus in the workshop. To the right you can see one of the utahraptors in the making. There are two now in their final makeover stage and will be ready to wreak havoc with our first utahraptor who was one of the stars or the walking with dinosaurs launch, facing off with Torosaurus. (You can see someone behind the dino’s head, as an indication of scale)
I can see how you would come to call them affectionate things like baby Brachi and Steg if you were working on the build. I dare say they would have come in for a lot of swearing too! With only about five weeks till the first show in Sydney the makers must be under a lot of pressure.
