La Pequeña Gigante

(Video: live Chilean television coverage, shot off TV set on iPhone so pardon quality).

I'm in Guatemala for a brief personal trip. I was just now sitting here in the family home after lunch, with the TV on. Suddenly, regular programming was interrupted by a live feed from Chile: a giant mechanical doll-girl has taken over the streets of Santiago. There are a bunch of dudes in red velvet suits yanking her cables. WTF.

"La Pequeña Gigante" is what the Chilean TV announcers are calling her. Turns out she's the creation of French mechanical marionette street theatre company Royal de Lux. She, and they, have been blogged here on Boing Boing a number of times. They've performed in Chile before (and many other cities), and the troupe is headed to NYC later this year. I may be the last to know about the takeover of earth by our giant-doll-girl overlords, but I, for one, welcome them.

They keep dressing and undressing her on TV. She's done more outfit changes in the past half hour than Cher during a live show. They're saying it took 80 horse-tails to create her eyelashes and hair. Her blinking eyes and jointed neck are creepy. The live coverage has been going on for like 2 hours now. I can't stop watching.

• [Alli]

  Being a NYer, I got all excited hearing Royal de Lux may be visiting us this year. I looked around, but I can’t find any sort of show schedule; best I found was a quote from _Kriebel_ on Flickr:

  “in an interview for http://www.nantesmetropole.fr/ Jean-Luc Courcoult said the following :

  in the beginning of 2010, we take our giants to Chile to celebrate the 200th birthday of independance there. After this whe’re going to New Zealand with « La Révolte des Mannequins » and the giants will appear later in Mexico, Montréal, Antwerp, Rotterdam,…
  We will do 4 to 5 parades with the Giants in a year and each parade will take months of preparation…”

  No mention of NY *sigh* but then again, it doesn’t say they aren’t coming either. I can only hope!

• [sorted]

  FY_FTW!!!

• [Anonymous]

  dear friend
  we had the chance to see them both in santiago chile, although taking my 2 yr old baby girl with us was not such a good idea, temperatures rise among the crows up to 100F (38C) and it was hard to stand still.

  in another hand it was impressive seeing this 35 ft giant walking and hugging the girl in his arms on saturday afternoon.

  many children cried full of emotions

  btw you tube has many hd videos
  search for hd pequeña gigante chile

  have fun

• [lux_aurumque]

  I’m surprised you haven’t heard of the Little Giantess. The Big Picture Blog featured her and her uncle, the Big Giant this past October on a trip they took to Berlin:
  http://www.boston.com/bigpicture/2009/10/the_berlin_reunion.html

  And here’s a youtube vid of their Berlin Reunion:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vuVOANuk0-k

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    Yes, thank you. The world is big, and I am not yet acquainted with everything in it. If you read the post above, I did reference prior BB posts by my co-bloggers including one by Pesco which pointed to that photo series.

    • [lux_aurumque]

      Sorry Xeni, I was being serious with my first comment, not sarcastic. Anyway, yes, I missed the “previously” box on my first read through, but I would still have been surprised either way. I thought Royal de Lux’s work was well enough known that you would have heard of them. It wasn’t meant as judgment; I was just trying to point you to some of their other work. Next time I’ll try to use exclamation points instead of periods to appear friendlier, and try to catch the entire post.

      • [Xeni Jardin]

        Oh, my apologies. I was jetlagged!

• [Anonymous]

  According to TVN, the next stop is in fact NYC, and the performance will be in or near Ground Zero. I don’t know how long it will take the company to get there, but they are moving the marionettes by ship to NY, meaning that it will be awhile because they have to cross the Panama Canal.

  Again, according to TVN, Royal de Luxe usually perform in places with strong cultural significance, so it wouldn’t be unusual to have the play near Ground Zero.

• [Anonymous]

  Damnit. I thought this was gonna be another video from La Pequena Hillary Clinton.

• [Patrick Dodds]

  Having seen her and the same company’s giant elephant in London a few years ago I can’t recommend strongly enough that you get along to see them – a fabulous piece of street theatre that I will never forget.

• [Anonymous]

  What dates are they supposed to appear in NYC?

• [knoxblox]

  I’m sure this makes Craig Schwartz so sad…

• [Daedalus]

  I did some vicious google-fu to try and figure out when these dudes were coming to NYC, since there is pretty much no possible way I can not enjoy this…

  Here’s what I found.

  Here is an article in French from ’08 that (according to rough Google Translate) mentions they’re coming to NYC for the 400th anniversary of Henry Hudson’s voyage.

  That happened last summer. According to This PDF, the plan was for it to go along with the replica of the Half Moon Hudson first sailed up the river in (Wiki!).

  It really seems like the proposal that didn’t go through, since I can’t imagine that this happened just six months ago and I didn’t hear about it somehow. I mean, even in this town, “twenty-foot tall puppet girls” are something that gets commented upon.

  Which sucks. I’d go pretty far to see this. Which means I gotta hit them in Montreal, I think….but heck if I know how to find details for that little event.

• [lava]

  Well if thats the way you want to play then I, for one, welcome our giant-doll-girl overlord welcomers.

• [Anonymous]

  We saw the Giant Girl in London a few years ago as part of the Sultans Elephant event.
  She is awesome and beautiful.
  You dont even see the operators and cables.

  HIGHLY recommended

• [Nawel]

  I saw this the first time they came to Santiago. I was surprised by the amount of people coming out to the streets to see her, but then again, it’s the idea, I guess, if you have a street theater company in your town, putting giant puppets shows, to go out and watch’em.

  I’m not too crazy over this kind stuff, but it’s nice and very well done.

• [Diego Quintana]

  I’m from Chile. The Little Giantess just left the country today.

  The Royal de Luxe was here in 2007 and now for 2010 and our 200 years as an independent republic.

  An estimated 2,000,000 witnessed the 3 days show.

  A lovely experience that will hopefully return soon. The Sultan’s Elefant would be quite amazing.

• [sezwally]

  Where did you hear that they are going to be in NYC? I can’t find any info and would love to plan a trip there to see them. Thanx

  • [Xeni Jardin]

    The chilean TV hosts were saying that the troupe is coming to NYC with the doll-girl. No dates given. Sorry, I don’t know more details.

    • [sezwally]

      Thanks

• [Anonymous]

  Hi everyone, i’m chilean, and it is a show that is closing a theater festival called “festival de santiago a mil”. Like apears up, it’s a french play. It’s the second time that she comes to Chile, She has done it in 2007, but she was alone, and the history said that she comes to help us with a rino that makes disorder and destruction in the capital. Now she’ll find she’s uncle. The reaction to the people has been similar like the first visit, but now in two different places. Some child still remember the first visit and compares it to the little gigant with the escafandra uncle.
  PS: I’ve reading up, and in the TV they say that the show will pass for NY street, that is a centric street in santiago. Maybe they’ll go NY, but i understand other thing.

• [MykReeve]

  Photos of the giant puppet girl on her visit to London with the Sultan’s Elephant on my flickr stream here:

  http://www.flickr.com/photos/mykreeve/sets/72057594125205604/

• [Amimetoca]

  The original viral video with the dreamy music, still my favorite:
  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qBXr15K2uSc