The 15th International Figurentheater-Festival in Erlangen, Nürnberg, Fürth and Schwabach will open today here in Germany and run till 20 May.One particular production which caught my eye on the programme, particularly because of our Monster project, was by a group from The Netherlands, Hotel Modern who are producing a piece entitled 'Camp'.
An enormous scale model of Auschwitz fills the stage. Overcrowded barracks, a railway track, the gateway with the words “Arbeit macht frei” and thousands of small puppets. In an attempt to imagine the unimaginable, the actors move through the set like giant war reporters, filming the horrific events with miniature cameras; the audience becomes the witness. For this the group uses a medium they call 'live animation'. This involves us filming scale models, with digital cameras and mini cameras, and projecting the results live on a large screen. In the models we can suggest characters with, for example, puppets and voice-overs. Using a mixing table to go from one camera to the other enables them to edit in a filmic manner to bring a cinematic, illusional reality to theatre. You can see their work here!
You can also watch a short film on the attack on the Twin Towers in NY. With the help of juice cartons, clay dolls and cardboard furniture, the viewer sees through the eyes of the hijackers, the aeroplane passengers and the people in the towers. See here!
