I was amazed when I first learnt about Lotte Reiniger a few years ago and saw this video of how she made her stop motion shadow puppetry films. The intricacy and deftness with which she plans, cuts and arranges the silhouettes, and the matter-of-factness in how she describes the process is quite breathtaking.

The Icelandic band Amiina play beautiful new musical soundscapes for three of Reiniger’s animated fairly tales in their live show Animagica, which has been touring Australia recently. Their instruments include violin, glassophone, musical saw and water-filled glasses. Below is a sampler of the performance, but you can also see more-or-less complete filmed performances of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty at YouTube.