Marionette Gallery 31 - The Sultan

This is the Sultan for Alladin and his wonderful lamp. Slightly chubby he got stuck on his throne a number of times. Good natured and at the end just a side character in the whole play. I wanted him to have rather chubby hand too. So there was no room to fit 5 fingers. Did not matter as the audience does not count fingers but gets taken away by the story and the action of the marionettes.

Marionette Gallery 30 - The Magician Kazur

What does a magician look like? Remember that I asked myself that question. My result was that he exists in two world. Our human one and the world beyond of what we can see and realise. The carved result was a doubled faced member of the crew. The stage entry showed the human one and when he slowly turned his other side was revealed. Pretty effective trick for my production of Alladin and his wonderful lamp.
The hand on each side was corresponding. This marionette is slightly taller than my average of 600mm. This gave him an even more menacing expression. The original show was named Alladin and his magic lamp. Christian families did not let there children go as it had to do with magic. Changing it to wonderful did not raise any objections and everybody was happy.

Marionette Gallery 29 - Alladin

Yes there he is Alladin. The show was created in the early 1990s. With magic lamp and flying carpet. The carpet was super effective and impressive. When he saved the sultans daughter and both criss crossed the stage, left a lasting impression on the audience. The comic sidekick was his friend Rama the camel. Not the brightest one but good natured. The photo shows him in his outfit once he came into the money. A fast change of turban and a bright red overthrow.

 Yes have to fix his nose string that broke recently:)  Cheers

What an honour, one of the best puppet blog on the net!

Yes I could not quite believe it and thought it is some sort of spam. Anuj Agarwal send me an email and congratulated me. http://blog,feedspot.com/puppet blogs/  is the contact. A list of the Top 75 Puppet Blogs on the internet. Here in little old New Zealand I did not know they all existed. Certainly a great contact to dive into. Yes as you ask, I am number 68.

Check it out!

Cheers and Thanks to all readers :) :)

End of two exhibitions and packing up

At the end of January Te Papa had a Maori ceremony to close the beautiful exhibition of my marionettes and other on the floor to make room for a complete remake of the area. A few days later the really successful Waikato exhibition closed. Te Papa is easy as I just drive down the road. For the Waikato exhibition it was a 7 hour drive. They put all the marionettes in an extra gallery so it was easy to bag them and put them in my station wagon. A nice drive and great weekend. North of Auckland at the Orewa estuary arts centre will be the next exhibition in July this year. It is their second one on puppets and it will have lots of activities as well.

 Very nice of the Museum to give me the display cabinet with a bare marionette so visitors can get an idea how they work. That was pretty successful and hope that Orewa will see it in July.