In the second half of this video you can see how the operators lunge off the moving platform to lift the legs for each step.
The spectacle was produced by the street theater company Royal de Luxe of Nantes, who brought us the Sultan’s Elephant.
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Image from Flickr user misterstf
Previous GurneyJourney post on the Sultan's Elephant, link.
Report on BoingBoing, link.
More Flickr images of the Giant Diver, link.
Wikipedia on Royal de Luxe, link.
Nantes municipal website with pictures and info, link.
Wow, those puppeteers must be exhausted by the end of the day.
ReplyDeleteExhausted indeed.
ReplyDeleteI remember them using the same walking technique when they had a similar giant in Antwerp when it was the 'cultural capital of Europe'. My god, that was '93!
I remember having to wait in my car as the giant crossed a road.
Meanwhile a car stopped right in front of my with squealing brakes.
Extra police, I thought, but no, it was a crew member dropping of a full trunc of water bottles for the crew! This was mid summer.
But the elephant a couple of years ago was the absolute top!
That is really neat! I know a few puppetry fans who will also find this interesting
ReplyDeleteI live in Nantes but this very week end i had to move to paris for work...
ReplyDeletei couldn't see this happening, but i saw a few show earlier and it's very impressive, and a great piece of art!
by the way, i found particulary curious the crashed space capsule in front of the cathedral a few year ago :
ReplyDeletehttp://www.nantes.fr/ext/royal_de_luxe_2005/images/royal22_grand.jpg
they actually cracked the ground and there was smoke spreading from the cracks!!
a real good stage!