THE SULTANS ELEPHANT

In my quest to find the most bizarre artistic things that just plain freak me
out, I came across this little snippett on
www.drawn.ca here's the speil:

So, I saw this link to this YouTube video of a giant marionette via ZeFrank’s site. She’s being operated by dozens of puppeteers, putting on her shoes, walking around, and.. uh.. taking a shower courtesy of the water-filled trunk of another marionnette: an elephant three-storeys high. It is at once creepy and mesmerizing. And even if you choose to find it ONLY creepy, you just can’t deny the craft behind it or how amazing this would have been to see live (in London just this past May; the show will be in Calais 28 Sept – 1 Oct, and then in Le Havre 26 – 29 Oct). It was a performance of The Sultan’s Elephant, by ‘Royal de Luxe.’ I found the following write-up on this About.com page (where you’ll also find great photos of the event):

“From Thursday 4 May to Sunday 7 May 2006, The Sultan’s Elephant appeared on the streets of central London. Created by the French company ‘Royal de Luxe’ the wooden elephant weighed 42 tons and was the height of a three-storey house! Royal de Luxe are an extraordinary European street theatre company, renowned on three continents but hardly known in Britain. This was the first time a ‘Royal de Luxe’ show had appeared in London.

The story of ‘The Sultan’s Elephant is loosely based on a tale by Jules Verne. The gist of the story is that there once lived a Sultan who was tormented in his dreams by visions of a girl who he believed was traveling through time. He couldn’t sleep so he built a time-traveling elephant and set off in search of the girl, who, in the course of his nightmares, had been transformed into a marionette 5 meters high.”

You can head to this page on the Sultan’s Elephant’s site to download four PDF booklets that tell the story, complete with illustrations. Which is what I’ll be reading in bed tonight.