A Giant Awakes in Nantes

By Queuebot in Art, Everything Else, Pictures, Travel on Jun 7, 2009 at 2:14 pm

Known for their supersized productions, the French mechanical marionette street theatre company Royale de Luxe have been up to their tricks again this weekend, this time on their home territory of the city of Nantes in western France.  A giant deep-sea diver desperately searches for his niece, a search which has encompassed a hundred years, the sinking of the Titanic and a mysterious mailbox.  This is quite an extraordinary sight by anyone’s standards.

Nantes, the home town of Jules Verne, is situated in western France. Here, near the river Loire a giant deep-sea diver sleeps gently, waiting for his task to begin. Sadness marks his face even as he sleeps. He has been searching the world over for his missing niece and although he may not know it, the end of his search is coming. The diver or scaphandrier as he is known in French will be paraded through the streets of this historic city at the beginning of the Estuary 2009 arts festival. The biannual festival gives the French mechanical marionette street theater company Royale de Luxe the opportunity to unveil their latest creation.

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From the Upcoming ueue, submitted by taliesyn30.


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  1. Christophe
    Jun 7th, 2009 at 2:15 pm

    you can hear them “pied droit! pied gauche!” (left foot! right foot!)

    http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gXzgVCZA2M8

  2. LisaL
    Jun 7th, 2009 at 2:33 pm

    Pretty cool. But that thing is hella creepy looking.

  3. Kalel
    Jun 7th, 2009 at 3:48 pm

    During the colonial era, France set up entire puppet governments!

  4. Scotchdrnkr
    Jun 8th, 2009 at 8:44 am

    I love their different marionettes. They are a bit creepy looking but still very neat. And the fact that they tied this one into the other little girl one was even better. Got to give those guys hanging from the tether lines credit. I don’t see any safety equiptment on them.
    What do they do with these things the rest of the year wehen the art fest isn’t going on. Just store them in a warehouse?

  5. Scotchdrnkr
    Jun 8th, 2009 at 8:50 am

    I just realized after looking at the video. That the guys swinging on the cables are actually the puppeteers. The crane just holds the thing up right they are actually using their body weights to maneuver the marionettes appendages.

  6. SenorMysterioso
    Jun 8th, 2009 at 1:07 pm

    Neat! I was hoping someone would post a video, thanks


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