The Sultan's Elephant was a show created by the Royal de Luxe theatre company, involving a huge moving mechanical elephant, a giant marionette of a girl and other associated public art installations. In French it was called La visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps (literally, "Visit From The Sultan Of The Indies On His Time-Travelling Elephant"). The show was commissioned to celebrate the centenary of Jules Verne's death, by the two French cities of Nantes and Amiens, funded by a special grant from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The show was performed at various locations around the world between 2005 and 2006.
The Sultan's Elephant show was performed in London from 4–7 May 2006. The show started with a rocket "crashing" in Waterloo Place on Thursday May 4, smashing up the tarmac, with smoke coming out from the bottom.
The giant girl chills out on a deck chair in St James Park, London
The giant girl takes a shower
The
elephant was designed by François Delarozière. It was made mostly of
wood, and was operated by 22 'manipulateurs' using a mixture
of hydraulics and motors. It weighed 50 tons, as much as 7 African
elephants.[With] hundreds of moving parts and scores of pumping pistons
(22 in the trunk alone), the elephant appealed to the same part of the
British psyche that admires Heath-Robinson contraptions and reveres
eccentric inventors. More than 56 square metres of reclaimed poplar was
combined with steel ribs to create the elephant's sturdy skeleton. The
attention to detail was extraordinary, from the flapping leather ears
and deep wrinkles around the eyes to the puffs of dust sent up by its
plodding feet, and the snaking, reticulated trunk.The elephant no longer
exists: Helen Marriage of Artichoke, the company that produced the
London performance, said "Royal de Luxe were so fed up with being
invited all over the world to perform The Sultan's Elephant, they just
destroyed it."A replica of the elephant was built in Nantes (France) in
2007, as part of the Machines of the Isle of Nantes permanent
exhibition.
Interesting :))
ReplyDeleteThere are a lot more videos at the end of this one. I'd pay to see that in person!
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