musée due quai Branly
February 21, 2012
I went to watch this performance with 5 other classmates. I noticed the space, like the museum, had a very dark color-scheme involving an earthy deep red, black, and a deep purple. It was a proscenium arch and the stage was basically a pool of water with a few meters of surrounding stage material bordering it. There was a woman who did both narration (in the form of song) and music (sticks, drums). There were nine puppeteers in total who each controlled a puppet. The narrator sat stage right/house left and faced stage left/house right. There was lighting that came from under the water that made the pool appear as if it were glowing, which was beautiful. There was a video of the bustling city life in Hanoi on a screen that also showed videos of the Vietnamese countryside while the narrator sang. Audio clips of insects were playing while the puppeteers were manipulating the puppets. The puppets themselves were on the ends of very long sticks painted black. This made the stick disappear more and the puppets seemed more believable and life-like. The screen displayed poems in French, a translation of the narrator's words. The puppets mostly consisted of water animals such as fish, snakes and crabs. There were also lions and dragons. Human characters and statues also floated in the water. There were scenes of every day life such as fishing, washing and playing. The statues seemed spiritual.
I think I dozed off in the first ten minutes while the video of the city life was being performed, perhaps because I grew up in a city very similar to that. So, it was soothing in a way. In fact, most of our group dozed off at some point. It made me miss South East Asia a bit.. I found it very interesting was that they modernized something as ancient as water puppetry by using a projection of videos and audio recordings of insect noises. The narrator also wore a microphone so that she was very clearly heard. The use of lighting was also quite different than the traditional lighting as it came from the water instead of from above. Also, the puppeteers were dressed in all black so they were not as visible instead of being dressed traditionally in color. This made me think of Bunraku theatre in Japan. Some of the music used reminded me of Chinese dragon dances, as the drumming was heavy and the pace was fast.
February 21, 2012
I went to watch this performance with 5 other classmates. I noticed the space, like the museum, had a very dark color-scheme involving an earthy deep red, black, and a deep purple. It was a proscenium arch and the stage was basically a pool of water with a few meters of surrounding stage material bordering it. There was a woman who did both narration (in the form of song) and music (sticks, drums). There were nine puppeteers in total who each controlled a puppet. The narrator sat stage right/house left and faced stage left/house right. There was lighting that came from under the water that made the pool appear as if it were glowing, which was beautiful. There was a video of the bustling city life in Hanoi on a screen that also showed videos of the Vietnamese countryside while the narrator sang. Audio clips of insects were playing while the puppeteers were manipulating the puppets. The puppets themselves were on the ends of very long sticks painted black. This made the stick disappear more and the puppets seemed more believable and life-like. The screen displayed poems in French, a translation of the narrator's words. The puppets mostly consisted of water animals such as fish, snakes and crabs. There were also lions and dragons. Human characters and statues also floated in the water. There were scenes of every day life such as fishing, washing and playing. The statues seemed spiritual.
I think I dozed off in the first ten minutes while the video of the city life was being performed, perhaps because I grew up in a city very similar to that. So, it was soothing in a way. In fact, most of our group dozed off at some point. It made me miss South East Asia a bit.. I found it very interesting was that they modernized something as ancient as water puppetry by using a projection of videos and audio recordings of insect noises. The narrator also wore a microphone so that she was very clearly heard. The use of lighting was also quite different than the traditional lighting as it came from the water instead of from above. Also, the puppeteers were dressed in all black so they were not as visible instead of being dressed traditionally in color. This made me think of Bunraku theatre in Japan. Some of the music used reminded me of Chinese dragon dances, as the drumming was heavy and the pace was fast.
