Introducing Adelaide’s own Giant Puppet
The Adelaide puppetry scene is set to become that much more visible, with the birth of a new giant puppet legacy.
When Swedish artist and ‘giant puppet engineer’ Felix Norgren (‘Felix Po’) suggested to local puppeteer Sulo Dissanayake he bring his puppet modelling technique to Adelaide, Sulo’s initial reaction was one of scepticism.
Sulo first worked with Felix in her home town of Colombo, Sri Lanka in 2018. However, for Sulo, as a skilled migrant who relocated to Australia only last year, the idea of self-funding an international artist to visit Adelaide and empower local artists with the skills to make a giant puppet, couldn’t help but feel like an impossible feat.
“That is madness, it’s never going to work,” Sulo recalls of her reaction to Felix’s proposal.
“But” Sulo concedes, “puppets happen because the people want them to happen”.
Thanks to a dedicated team of local artists, community members and volunteers from the newly formed SA Puppetry Network, this “intense labour of love” known as the ‘Giant Puppet Project’ has been a testament to the power of community in enabling creative risk-taking. Equally instrumental has been support from the Australian Migrant Resource Centre (AMRC) who provided the project with a dedicated workspace.
The result has seen the birth of a brand new puppetry legacy in Adelaide, which saw 45+ participants work together over five weeks to build a masterpiece of puppet-making.
The giant puppet model is Felix’s brain child, who describes himself as primarily interested in mechanics and art, with “puppeteering just coming along” as a result. For the past 15 years Felix has activated office buildings, jungles and cities across the world with the joy of puppetry on a giant scale, with his largest audience being a crowd of 600 000 people during a festival in Stockholm.
When Felix maneuvers the puppet he is strapped in with a harness to a giant body double his own height. Felix confesses that working the puppet is, admittedly, tiring, but that he is always energised by the reaction of the crowd.
“The longest I’ve done [in the puppet] is 5 hours”, Felix reminisces, “as I began to think it's not possible, I would turn a corner and see 5000 more screaming people… so it’s pure adrenaline.”
The Adelaide version of the giant puppet project has been designed to represent the common humanity shared by Adelaide’s diverse community, acknowledging the mixed heritage of all the people who lent a hand to build the puppet. AMRC Community Services Manager, Diana Flores, explains how this project could “only be achieved through connections, strong bonds and community work”.
Catriona Smith, a member of SA Puppetry Network, describes the importance of how “people would just come back”.
“It takes everyone chugging along and doing their little bit, and everyone’s hand has been on this thing and has made it what it is,” she says.
The puppet who is yet to be christened will be available for community celebrations, cultural events, and will even create work for a small crew of puppeteers who will be trained to take Felix’s place as puppet master.
Member of SA Puppetry Network, Keith Preston, speaks to the fact that “puppetry is a minority artform” and is “in danger of becoming extinct if we don’t keep it going”.
The Network is a way to support local puppetry and see the artform continue to flourish, as, Keith stresses, “[puppetry] has a very long and important part to play… [it is a] very humanitarian art-form… and puppets represent us as people.”
Buoyed with Adelaide’s newest Giant Puppet, and the continued knowledge of giant puppet making, if nothing else the relatively unsung local puppetry scene is certainly likely to become more visible.
The puppet will celebrate its official launch on the 20th of February in an Adelaide Fringe Festival event at AMRC supported by the City of Adelaide. The event will feature puppetry displays & performances, Venezuelan music and dance and an official welcome to the Giant Puppet where they will be given their name.
All are welcome and the event is free to attend from 6-7.30pm.
The giant puppet project is an initiative of the South Australian Puppetry Network - facilitated by Swedish puppeteer Felix Norgren (supported by Swedish Arts Grant Committee) in partnership with Australian Migration Resource Centre.