marionettes

The (Very) Sad Fish Lady

Posted by hil

Very sad fish lady

The (very) Sad Fish Lady, now on at the Street Theatre until 5th Oct, is delightful. It’s written and directed by Joy McDonald, and is a fusion of stories from her family about their immigration from the little Greek island of Castellorizo, just off the Turkish coast, to Australia, plus a bit of magic. It’s told with a mixture of puppets – marionettes (Joy toured Australia as a puppeteer with the Marionette Theatre of Australia’s Tintookies), shadow puppets in the style of the Greek Karagiozis tradition, and rod puppets. Its unusual to see marionettes these days, and they have a great charm to them.

The play has a unique quality to it, in the sense that the story and the characters are not stereotypical in any sense – this is a real breathe of fresh air!  I think this is partly what Frank McKone is referring to when he describes it as folk art theatre. It’s also outright funny in places, and has great music by David Pereira. Imogen Keen was the set designer and Joy made the puppets. My involvement was making the little rock house the VS Fish Lady lives in.

There’s also an accompanying exhibition of the puppets, storyboard and process at Craft ACT until 19 Oct. I took the following photos there:

Mr Moustaki.

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The (very) Sad Fish Lady.

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Some of the characters (in shadow puppet form) who visit the fish lady to have their fortunes told.

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The shadow puppets from behind the screen.

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Drawings of the (very) Sad Fish Lady’s epiphany. There is now a picture book of The (very) Sad Fish Lady.

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A few titbits from Royal de Luxe’s Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacular

Posted by hil

The Royal de Luxe‘s Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacular that took place at the weekend in Liverpool to commemorate the Titanic centenary seems to have been a roaring success, with a huge turnout and press coverage. There are a great many photos and videos online now (including at Flickr), so I’ll only mention a few that interested me in particular.

Journalists from the Liverpool Echo were the first ever to be allowed to visit the company’s headquarters in Nantes and they have an article and brief behind the scenes video clip. This gives us a glimpse of the workshop, and interviews with the director who coordinates the teams of people who move the giants, and the Little Giantess’s movement conductor.  I was interested to see La Machine viewed as a rival company! There seemed so much cross-over between the two that I’ve always assumed they were associated or sister companies!

I also hadn’t seen the Little Giantess dancing with joy before! At Flickr kingo62 has a great photo from the dance.

And I was taken with Xolo being washed and having his teeth brushed. His ears have great movement, they’re really expressive.

Previously:

Xolo will be in Liverpool too

Posted by hil

Xolo, Royal de Luxe

 

Here’s a great photo of Xolo, Royal de Luxe‘s giant dog!  It’s just been announced that Xolo will be appearing the Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacle in Liverpool in a couple of weeks time, along with the Little Giantess and her uncle, the deep sea diver.

Previously:

Royal de Luxe’s Sea Odyssey

Posted by hil

 

Four years ago La Machine debuted their giant spider, La Princesse in Liverpool. This year, as one of the cities directly connected with the Titanic which sank on 15 April 1912, it’s marking the centenary with numerous events, the highlight of which will be the Sea Odyssey Giant Spectacle by the associated company, Royal de Luxe, on 20 – 22 April. It’ll feature the Little Giantess and her uncle, the deep sea diver, in a story adapted for the occasion. A number of cool promo ads in which the Little Giantess is wandering the city and peeping into different famous places have been released.

 

 

Search my blog for La Machine and Royal de Luxe if you are interested in more links – I’ve posted a lot about them and their influence over the years!

The Grimstones – Mortimer Revealed

Posted by hil

This is a preview of The Grimstones – Mortimer Revealed , the second show in Asphyxia’s magical gothic fairytale about the Grimstone family, following on from The Grimstones – Hatched. I love the look of these marionettes, and hope to catch a performance sometime when they tour up this way. Their touring itinerary is here.

Royal de Luxe’s giants celebrate reunion in Berlin

Posted by hil

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(photo credit: Verieihnix, thank you)

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.

Earlier this year in June the diver debuted in Nantes in La géante du Titanic et le scaphandrier, but in Berlin the back story, already one of separation and reunion, has been redrawn as an allegory for the divisions of Germany:

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.

Giant Pinóquio puppet by Trigo Limpo ACERT

Posted by hil

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(photo credits and thanks: zetavares)

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.

Zetavares has a great Flicker photoset of the 7 metre marionette, and has kindly let me post some of his photos here. He also has interesting sets of the making of the puppet, and the rehearsing the manipulation.

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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:

Teatro e Marionetas de Mandrágora were involved with the manipulation of the puppet. I first saw pictures of Pinoquio on their blog Espaço das Marionet@s, which I have been following for a while now.

Trigo Limpo ACERT have previously made some other great street theatre pieces, two of them large versions of traditional wooden push-along children’s toys. Memoriar na rotunda had a man pedalling a bicycle, (making photos here) and Golpe d’Asa, a bird whose wings flap as its wheel base rotates.

Giant wire marionette in Vancouver

Posted by hil

vancouver

(photo credit: stephenccwu)

This huge wire marionette appeared at the opening of the new Vancouver Convention Centre last weekend; I gather it was associated with Cirque du Soleil. It was a performance by the Underground Circus, and the marionette was made by Peter Boulanger (who was kind enough to let me know in a comment below). It’s made of aluminium (I guess it’s really thick round wire?) , and at about 40 feet, billed as the tallest marionette in Northern America. The puppet moves to music and is operated by 5 puppeteers working pulleys. In this photo you can see it standing fully, supporting two acrobats: the one in the ball and one on the length of material. This is a great photo of it, too.

(influence of Royal de Luxe? Peter says not directly, though he knew of their work)

La Princesse

Posted by hil

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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’ :)