Shadow Kingdom
Assembly Roxy- Upstairs, every day at 11:15 am.
Shadow Kingdom is our shadow puppetry show created in 2017, aimed at young people and the young at heart. Using almost four hundred hand-cut puppets, original music and silly voices, it presents a fantastic bedtime story in the style of Peter Pan and Alice in Wonderland. We create a live animated movie right before your eyes!
There is a magical kingdom where it is always night. An Owl has taken over the throne and has made sleep forbidden. Can one human child stop the Owl before our undreamt dreams destroy the world? Join us as we use hundreds of hand-cut puppets to perform a live animated movie before your eyes and take you on a journey to the Shadow Kingdom!
Can you tell me a little bit about shadow puppetry and how you became involved in it?
Shadow puppetry is possibly the oldest form of entertainment in the world. Our prehistoric ancestors made shadows by firelight and with the sun. It is the precursor to the animation we watch today. It’s also one of the most accessible forms of puppetry. Anyone can do it, as long as they have a light source and anything at all that casts a shadow. When most people think of shadow puppetry, they probably think of Wayang Kulit from Indonesia, which was a great source of inspiration for our company.
Even though you watch shadow puppetry on a screen, it is a different experience from watching a film or video. Film shows you pictures in quick succession to create the illusion of movement. But with shadow puppetry, it is actual movement. It’s analog.
My partner Seri and I met while taking a shadow puppetry course at the London School of Puppetry, which at that time was located in Yorkshire. I had come from Canada, wanting to learn more about puppetry after starting a Puppet Slam in my hometown. Seri came to study theatre after directing several shows in Japan. We teamed up and started making shows together. At first, we tried using many different forms of puppetry but soon realized that shadow was our favourite to perform. We have spent almost a decade developing our style of shadow puppetry. We use hundreds of puppets in rapid succession, projected onto a large screen with music and silly voices to create shows that are like live animated movies.
What does it mean to you as a company to create a show for all ages? Does this mean it is a children show or are you thinking of something order?
We set out to make an original story, in the spirit of epic children’s fantasy adventures such as the Wizard of Oz, Alice in Wonderland, the Neverending Story, and so on. Stories that we enjoyed as kids and still enjoy as adults. Stories that are created for children but can also entertain and capture the imagination of adults.
What was the inspiration for the subject of the show?
I read an article in a magazine about how many children are developing sleep problems caused by staying up too late looking at their smartphones. They have trouble putting the phone away because they’re afraid they’ll miss out on something important or fun. (FOMO) I think this is a problem that adults can relate to as well. So I decided to write a fantasy about what happens to the world of dreams when people stop sleeping.
What is it about puppetry that makes you excited to work with it?
We love that with puppetry, there seem to be infinite possibilities while using very few resources. You can create a show by hot-gluing stuff that you find lying around your house. We can create entire worlds with a huge cast of characters, even though there are only two of us on stage. We love that puppets are objects that we can craft and touch with our hands. But the main reason is that we’re shy and would prefer that the audience looks at the puppets instead of us.
What are your expectations for the Edinburgh Festival?
We hope that it will lead to us getting some bookings in the UK. We met in the UK, so it has always been our dream to perform there. But for the most part, we just want to put on a great show and make people happy.
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