 | This article needs additional citations for verification .(November 2019) |
Royal de Luxe is a French mechanical marionette street theatre company which specialises in giant puppets. They were founded in 1979 in Aix-en-Provence [1] by Jean-Luc Courcoult. After some years based in Toulouse, the company moved to Nantes in 1989. The company has performed in France, Belgium, England, Germany, Iceland, Chile, Australia, Mexico, Canada, Switzerland, the Netherlands and Ireland.
| Title | City | Country | Date | Event | Spectators number [2] |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Giant who fell from the sky | Le Havre | France | September 1993 | ||
| Calais | France | June 1994 | Channel Tunnel's opening | ||
| Nîmes | France | July 1994 | |||
| Nantes | France | August 1994 | |||
| Bayonne | France | September 1994 | |||
| The Giant who fell from the sky, last voyage | Le Havre | France | October 1994 | ||
| The Giant who fell from the sky in Barcelona | Barcelona | Spain | July 1997 | ||
| Rhinoceros | Arles | France | July 1997 | Arles International Photography Festival | |
| Lisbon | Portugal | May 1998 to September 1998 | 1998 Lisbon World Exposition | ||
| Return from Africa | Le Havre | France | June 1998 | ||
| Nantes | France | June 1998 | |||
| Calais | France | July 1998 | |||
| Antwerp | Belgium | August 1998 | Zomer van Antwerpen | ||
| Giraffes Hunter | Nantes | France | September 2000 | ||
| Le Havre | France | October 2000 | |||
| Calais | France | October 2000 | |||
| The Sultan of the Indies visit on his time travelling Elephant | Nantes | France | May 2005 | Jules Verne Death Centenary | 150,000 |
| Amiens | France | June 2005 | Jules Verne Death Centenary | ||
| London | England | May 2006 | 1 million | ||
| Antwerp | Belgium | July 2006 | Zomer van Antwerpen | 650,000 | |
| Calais | France | September 2006 | |||
| Le Havre | France | October 2006 | 300,000 | ||
| The Giant : visits the pont du Gard | Vers-Pont-du-Gard | France | August 2006 | ||
| The Hidden Rhinoceros | Santiago | Chile | January 2007 | Santiago a Mil International Theater Festival | 2 million |
| The geyser of Reykjavik | Reykjavík | Iceland | May 2007 | Reykjavík Arts Festival | 50,000 [3] |
| The fabulous story of the warrior buried alive of Santa Maria | Santa Maria da Feira | Portugal | May 2008 | International Theatre Festival of Santa Maria da Feira | |
| The Giantess of the Titanic and the deep-sea diver | Nantes Saint-Nazaire | France | June 2009 | Biennial contemporain art opening 'Estuaire' 2009 | 350,000 |
| The Berlin appointment | Berlin | Germany | October 2009 | 20th Anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall | 1.5 million |
| The Invitation Chile | Santiago | Chile | January 2010 | Celebrations of the Bicentennial of Chile | 3 million |
| The deep-sea diver, his hand, and the Little Girl-Giant | Antwerp | Belgium | August 2010 | Zomer van Antwerpen | 800,000 |
| The Giant of Guadalajara | Guadalajara | Mexico | November 2010 | Bicentennial celebrations of the Mexican War of Independence Mexican Revolution Centenary | 3.5 million |
| The wall fallen from the sky in Guadalajara | Guadalajara | Mexico | November 2010 | Fresco painted in the style of Mexican artist Diego Rivera | - |
| El Xolo | Nantes | France | May 2011 | 600,000 | |
| The wall fallen from the sky in Nantes | Nantes | France | May 2011 | Fresco painted in the style of Mexican artist Diego Rivera | - |
| Sea Odyssey | Liverpool | England | April 2012 | Centenary of the sinking of the Titanic | 800,000 |
| Planck's wall | Nantes | France | June 2014 | 500,000 | |
| Memories of August 1914 | Liverpool | England | July 2014 | Liverpool's World War I centenary commemorations | 1 million |
| The Grandmother fallen from the galaxy into a field in Munster | Limerick | Ireland | September 2014 | National City of Culture 2014 | 250,000 [4] |
| The Incredible and Phenomenal Journey of the Giants to the Streets of Perth | Perth | Australia | February 2015 | Perth International Arts Festival Anzac Centenary | 1.4 million [5] |
| The Giants [6] | Antwerp | Belgium | June 2015 | Zomer van Antwerpen | 900,000 [7] |
| Les Géants - La grande invitation [8] | Montreal | Canada | May 2017 | Montreal's 375th birthday [9] | |
| The Knight of the Lost Time (Le chevalier du temps perdu) [10] | Geneva | Switzerland | September–October 2017 | 850,000 [11] | |
| Big skate in de ice/Fight against the water | Leeuwarden | Netherlands | August 2018 | European Capital of Culture 2018 | 425,000/450,000 |
| Liverpool's Dream | Liverpool | England | October 2018 The End | 10 Year Anniversary of Liverpool's European Capital of Culture | Estimated 1.3 Million This theater has been performed 44 times. |
| Bull Machin de Villeurbanne | Villeurbanne | France | September, 2022 | At the invitation of the Theatre Carouge and the city of Geneva | 300,000 |
Sources: Portraits des géants on the Nantes website.
| Name | Date of Creation | Height | Length | Weight | Shoe size | Number of operators | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| The Big Giant | 1993 | 9.50m | - | 2.20m | 237 | 32 | Structure of 14m high 8.50m width |
| Le Rhinocéros | 1997 | 2.50m | 5.00m | - | - | 17 | |
| Le Petit Géant noir | 1998 | 5.50 | - | 1 t | - | 18 | |
| La Grande Girafe | 2000 | 12.00m | 15.30m | 25t | - | 25 | 4 km/h normally but can run up to 10 km/h |
| La Petite Girafe | 2000 | 5m | - | - | - | 25 | |
| The Sultan's Elephant | 2005 | 12m | 21.00m | 48t | - | 22 | is moving at 1.5 km/h |
| La Petite Géante | 2005 | 5.50m | - | 0.8t | 166 | 18 en 2011 22 en 2009 | 2.5 km/h by foot 4 km/h with scooter |
| Le Géant en colère (the father of the little giant girl) | 2007 | - | - | - | - | 3 [12] | Presented in Reykjavik only [13] The head of the great giant |
| Le Scaphandrier | 2009 | 9.50m | - | 2t | 237 | 30 | The big giant in a diving suit |
| El Xolo | 2011 | 2.80m | 3.5m | 0.20t | - | 20 | Height at withers: 1.80m Walking speed: 4 km/h Running speed: 6 km/h. |
| El Campesino | 2011 | 9.50m | - | 2.50t | 237 | 32 | Mexican for "Le grand géant" |
| La Grand-Mère | 2014 | 7.50m | - | 1.7t | 276 | 25 | The first talking giant |
| Bull Machin | 2022 | 4.40m | 0.86t | - |
Nantes is a city in Loire-Atlantique of France on the Loire, 50 km (31 mi) from the Atlantic coast. The city is the sixth largest in France, with a population of 320,732 in Nantes proper and a metropolitan area of nearly 1 million inhabitants (2020). With Saint-Nazaire, a seaport on the Loire estuary, Nantes forms one of the main north-western French metropolitan agglomerations.
Yves Chaland was a French cartoonist.
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. The show was commissioned to commemorate 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 Machines of the Isle of Nantes is an artistic, touristic and cultural project based in Nantes, France. The project is based in the old covered buildings of the former shipyards in Nantes that were at one time used for ship construction, and later used as business sites.
La Princesse is a 15-metre (50-foot) mechanical spider designed and operated by French performance art company La Machine. The spider was showcased in Liverpool, England, as part of the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations, travelling around the city between 3–7 September. In 2009, it was on display in Yokohama, Japan, as part of Yokohama's 150th anniversary of its port opening. Arts reviewer Lyn Gardner wrote in The Guardian "There were times when it seemed to be leading the entire population of the city on a merry dance, like some kind of arachnid pied piper."
Artichoke, also known as the Artichoke Trust, is a London-based British company and registered charitable trust that stages arts spectacles and live events. It was founded in 2002 by Helen Marriage, former director of the Salisbury International Arts Festival, and Nicky Webb.
La Machine is a French production company based in Nantes, France, which is famous for La Princesse, a 50-foot mechanical spider constructed in Nantes, France.
François Delarozière is the art director of La Machine, a French company which is a collaboration between artists, designers, fabricators and technicians and which specialises in producing giant performing machines, often creatures. He has collaborated with French and international companies in productions ranging from traditional theatre to experimental street art.
The Revolt of the papier timbré was an anti-fiscal revolt in the west of Ancien Régime France, during the reign of Louis XIV from April to September 1675. It was fiercest in Lower Brittany, where it took on an anti-lordly tone and became known as the revolt of the Bonnets rouges or revolt of the Torrebens. It was unleashed by an increase in taxes, including the papier timbré, needed to authenticate official documents.
Mathilda Marie Berthilde Paruta, better known as Darling Légitimus, was a French actress. In 1983, she received the Volpi Cup for Best Actress for her performance in the film Sugar Cane Alley.
The 2nd Magritte Awards ceremony, presented by the Académie André Delvaux, honored the best films of 2011 in Belgium and took place on February 4, 2012, at the Square in the historic site of Mont des Arts, Brussels beginning at 7:45 p.m. CET. During the ceremony, the Académie André Delvaux presented Magritte Awards in 21 categories. The ceremony was televised in Belgium by BeTV. Film director Bertrand Tavernier presided the ceremony, while actress Helena Noguerra hosted the show for the second time.
Sea Odyssey: Giant Spectacular was a three-day outdoor performance art event featuring giant marionettes, that took place in Liverpool, England, from 20 to 22 April 2012.
Gayant is a processional giant that symbolizes the city of Douai. It is carried through the city for three days each year at the beginning of July as part of an eponymous festival alongside its "wife", Marie Cagenon, and their three "children", Jacquot, Fillon, and Binbin. The family arrives at the belfry at Douai on the final Sunday of the festival, which culminates with Le Grand Cortège in the afternoon.
Memories of August 1914 was a five-day outdoor performance art event featuring giant marionettes, and took place in Liverpool, England, from 23 to 27 July 2014. The event started with the sleeping Grandmother on display in St George's Hall. On the Friday, approximately 300,000 people watched the giants in the city. On the final day, the giants left the city in a boat on the River Mersey, after making their way from Clarence Dock via The Strand. Crowd estimates show that over the course of the weekend, more than 1.5 million people attended the event.
Jean-Baptiste-Rose-Bonaventure Violet d'Épagny was a French playwright, poet, journalist and writer.
Georges Vitaly, real name Vitali Garcouchenko,, was a 20th-century French actor, theater director and theater manager.
Éric Assous was a French director, screenwriter, dialoguist, and dramatist born in Tunis.
Liverpool’s Dream was a three-day outdoor performance art event featuring giant marionettes, that took place in Liverpool, England, from 5 to 7 October 2018. The event attracted more than a million visitors to the city and was, in part, a celebration of the 10th anniversary of Liverpool’s year as European Capital of Culture in 2008. It was billed as being the last appearance of the giants and the final show of the ‘Giants Trilogy’ after Sea Odyssey and Memories of August 1914.
In October 2018, the owner of a book shop in the Gobelins neighbourhood in the 13th arrondissement of Paris began lending out oversized teddy bears. Photographs of them in human poses in various local and wider Parisian settings have been widely circulated.
A giant puppet is a puppet which is tall enough to be easily visible to a street crowd while being manipulated by puppeteers, on the same level. It is therefore most suitable for processions, street theatre and performance art, although some large theatrical animations can be used for the same purpose. Giant puppets are usually articulated and made from a lightweight material. Some are manipulated by puppeteers using rods, strings, stilts, other mechanisms, or a combination of these. Giant puppets have been used worldwide for street entertainment, celebrations or other purposes from ancient times, and they continue in use and in development today. Of the traditional giant rod puppets, the Chinese dragon New Year puppet is "perhaps the most recognized form of the parade puppet". Of the most recent examples, Royal de Luxe of France has produced a notable set of giant string puppets.
