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.
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
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 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.
(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
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
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:
Last week an American non-violent activist, Scott Parkin, was arrested and removed from Australia, after having his visa revoked. The Federal Attorney-General, Ruddock, said that the Minister for Immigration, Vanstone, revoked Parkin’s
visa based on an ASIO Security assessment. “I understand the decision was based upon a security assessment, and security assessments are notsomething about which I can comment in any detail.” SourceWatch has a detailed account.
According to a radio piece on the ABC’s The Deep End on Thursday 15th (which you can listen to) Parkin uses street theatre and puppetry. For instance, his groupdoes an act called Hallibacon, which features a large inflatable pig, and protesters wearing snouts and pig masks being fed cash from a trough of public money by Cheney.
Such protests have for a long time been regarded as freedom of speech here. In the absence of other reasons, we have to be worried that is being curtailed. On the other hand, there is speculation that our government was doing someone else’s bidding. Crikey outlines the scenario. On the ABC’s The National Interest on Sept 18th, Terry Lane claims that Kellogg Brown Root, subsidiary of Halliburton, donated $50,000 to both major political parties here, suggesting both a question mark over the opposition’s acquiescence, and an alternative avenue for foreign corporations to exercise power. The Law Report, broadcast Tuesday 19th, will talk to Parkin’s lawyer about the case.
Update: Scott Parkin’s own account of his experience
Updated 2015 – most links outdated.
Update: I’ve posted a lot about Royal de Luxe and it’s influence since this post. Click here to go to search links to all those posts.
Update 2015 – removed and struck out some broken links
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I’m blown away by the French street theatre company Royal de Luxe’s amazing street parade, ‘The Visit of the Sultan of India Atop His Time-Travelling Elephant’, which took place in Nantes last week, in honour of the centenary of Jules Verne’s death. A rocket landed just outside the cathedral in place Saint Pierre, and from it a young giantess emerged. Together with the Sultan’s huge 11 metre tall elephant with a house built into its back, she explored the streets of Nantes, taking time to eat an icecream, ride a scooter, take a shower and nap, be lifted up onto the elephant’s trunk, and eventually to return to take off in her rocket again.
I’ve been collecting links! If you are short on time go to the ones with asterisks. (edited Oct 2014 to remove defunct del-icio.us link).
2007:
2006:
The Sultan’s Elephant in Antwerp (added 8 July 2006)
The Sultan’s Elephant in London (added 21 Apr 2006)
2005:
Nantes official site (in French):
Other photo galleries:
At Flickr:
Blog entries:
Amiens:
About Royal de Luxe:About Royal de Luxe (French sites):
Royal de luxe at Wikipedia (added July 2007)
Machines of Spectacle
‘Hunters of the Giraffes’ photo galleries:
‘The Giant’
Catamini Attraction
Poster
Tour dates:
2005:
2006: (only London confirmed as far as I know)
Over at Puppetry Australia, Sean Manners has put together a pictorial account of the building of the parade puppets for Nature Band, a community puppet project that ran as part of the One Van Puppetry Festival earlier in the year, held in Blackheath in the Blue Mountains out of Sydney. The puppets, five yellow-tailed black cockatoos, four trees and three
waratahs, were made by participants in community workshops that were held over several months.
‘The puppets were initially designed by Jenny Kee; realized by Paula Martin, a local designer and sculptor; the workshops were facilitated by Sean Manners, puppeteer and community artist; and the performance and project as a whole was directed and choreographed by Sue Wallace of Sydney Puppet Theatre.’
The Victory Theatre Cafe and Antique Centre in Blackheath has a cool community mural along one side, that surely must also have been designed by Kenny Kee:
There is also a bus shelter on the edge of Blackheath that I liked because it has been painted to celebrate the puppetry festival (click on the thumbnails for larger images):
I heard the distinctive yellow-tailed black cockatoo calls when I was in Blackheath. They are wonderful birds, quite big – about 60cm – and I always feel its a good omen when they are about, though their calls are somewhat plaintive. In Canberra it used to be quite rare to see these cockatoos, but since the devastating bushfires in January 2003 they have moved into the suburbs. A few weeks ago, we had the first ones in our garden. They spent several hours ripping the bark and branches of a dying gum tree to bits in search of borer insects.
