sleeping beauty

 
Behind the scenes for The New Victory Theater's sumptuous Sleeping Beauty marionette production.  Carlo Colla & Sons have been handcrafting these puppets since the 19th century, using wool from Scotland, silk from China, along with real human hair for the wigs, and carved from linden wood.  The puppets are repainted for different shows, and were featured in a February cat walk during Milan's Fashion Week wearing costumes for Giuseppe Verdi's operas.  T Magazine reports, "Modern costumes are much more intricate than those of early marionette shows, because the change in stage lighting from lanterns to lightbulbs made it easier for audiences to see details."

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*Photo credit/via T Magazine,  "A Marionette Production of ‘Sleeping Beauty,” Created With Centuries-Old Techniques, by Alainna Lexie Beddie.

city of the angels

Via Huffpost, L.A.'s Radar Theater festival is a not-to-miss if you're city-scape south through October 1st. Includes Japanese Dogugaeshi, Mexican surrealist theater, and one very, very sinister puppet plot .. amidst other contemporary and urban, visually compelling, socio-political explorations.  Yes indeed.

*Photo credit/via Redcat, photographer: Amanda Shank, Puppet scene from the serial murder tale in "Clouded Sulphur" by Janie Geiser and Erik Ehn.

associations

Paul Klee's puppets associated to Henry Darger.  In the early 1920's, he made 50 for his son Felix, 30 of which have survived.  Ptak also comments,
  
The puppets are intimate, made for his son for play, and are composed of bristle and bone and nutshells and electrical outlets and bits of gingham and cloth and wire and buttons.  Stuff from the junk drawn or whatnot box.  Klee did construct more elaborate puppets for his connection with the theatre, and of course was also a sculptor.  But I do like these little puppets, much in the same way as I enjoy the small toys made by Alexander Calder for his kids.

Charming Calder toy and circus photos here at Mochimochi Land who writes:  

When living in Paris in the 1920s, Calder created a cast of human and animal figures made of wire and scraps of other simple materials. Each of these toys could perform a trick of motion when manipulated by hand: a lion tamer snapped a whip, a dog walked around on its hind legs. Calder held entire mini circus performances in which he would get down on the floor and manipulate his modernist toys for audiences adults and children. (Back in New York, fans could book Calder’s circus through the Junior League at Saks Fifth Avenue.)

Via Mochi, the Whitney has this youtube of Calder performing his circus, though noting that seeing it in person during the 1920's must have been a vastly different experience:

*Photo credit/top, Ptak Science Books/3 of Paul Klee's surviving puppets/second, Mochimochi Land, an Alexander Calder circus toy.