Both kids were a bit hyped up tonight, so we packed a picnic dinner and made use of a conveniently-located after-hours work carpark and headed to South Bank Parklands for some more Festival 2018 puppet action.

First up was ‘Megafauna’ by Dead Puppet Society. This featured a family of three dinosaur (diprotodon) puppets – two parent and one baby – that weaved their way through the crowds gathered for the live music in the Cultural Forecourt. The diprotodons ‘talked’ to each other in grunts and groans, stopped to munch on some grass and interacted with the crowd for some sniffing, nuzzling and pats.

The feature of the evening (for us) was String Symphony, in which 12 members of the public worked together to operate Lior, a 4m high marionette made from 2km of rope. The name ‘Lior’ means ‘I have light’ and, true to his name, LED lights entwined in the rope that has made Lior’s body makes him glow in the evening sky. The workshop lasted for 30 minutes and during that time, 3 different crews of 12 people were selected from the crowd to control Lior to create a variety of movement patterns. Dodge controlled Lior’s shoulders in the first rotation and Skuzz controlled Lior’s left lower arm in the last rotation of the workshop we watched. During Dodge’s rotation, the 12 ‘novice puppeteers’ worked together to make Lior run and swing through the sky. During Skuzz’s rotation, the 12 ‘novice puppeteers’ created a range of new yoga poses, named after animals and activities, culminating in the ‘sleeping rabbit’ in which Lior bounced on four legs like a rabbit before gently curling up and falling asleep.

 

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