The Sultan's Elephant - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Sultan's Elephant was a show created by the Royal de Luxe

Royal de luxe

Royal de Luxe is a French mechanical marionette street theatre company. They were founded in 1979 by Jean Luc Courcoult. Based in Nantes, the company has performed in France, Belgium, England, Germany, Iceland, Chile, Australia and Mexico.- Gigantic puppets :...

theatre company, involving a huge moving mechanical elephant

Elephant

Elephants are large land mammals in two extant genera of the family Elephantidae: Elephas and Loxodonta, with the third genus Mammuthus extinct...

, a giant marionette

Marionette

A marionette is a puppet controlled from above using wires or strings depending on regional variations. A marionette's puppeteer is called a manipulator. Marionettes are operated with the puppeteer hidden or revealed to an audience by using a vertical or horizontal control bar in different forms...

of a girl and other associated public art installations. In French it was called La visite du sultan des Indes sur son éléphant à voyager dans le temps (literally, "Visit From The Sultan Of The Indies

Indies

The Indies is a term that has been used to describe the lands of South and Southeast Asia, occupying all of the present India, Pakistan, Bangladesh, Myanmar, Nepal, Sri Lanka, the Maldives, and also Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Brunei, Singapore, the Philippines, East Timor, Malaysia and...

On His Time-Travelling Elephant"). The show was commissioned to commemorate the centenary of Jules Verne

Jules Verne

Jules Gabriel Verne was a French author who pioneered the science fiction genre. He is best known for his novels Twenty Thousand Leagues Under the Sea , A Journey to the Center of the Earth , and Around the World in Eighty Days...

's death, by the two French cities of Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

and Amiens

Amiens

Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

, funded by a special grant from the French Ministry of Culture and Communication. The show was performed at various locations around the world between 2005 and 2006.

Design and construction

The elephant was designed by François Delarozière

François Delarozière

François Delarozière is the Artistic Director of La Machine, a French company which is a collaboration between artists, designers, fabricators and technicians and which specialises in producing giant performing machines, often creatures...

. It was made mostly of wood, and was operated by 22 'manipulateurs' using a mixture of hydraulics

Hydraulics

Hydraulics is a topic in applied science and engineering dealing with the mechanical properties of liquids. Fluid mechanics provides the theoretical foundation for hydraulics, which focuses on the engineering uses of fluid properties. In fluid power, hydraulics is used for the generation, control,...

and motors. It weighed 50 tons, as much as seven African elephants.

[With] hundreds of moving parts and scores of pumping pistons (22 in the trunk alone), the elephant appealed to the same part of the British psyche that admires Heath Robinson contraptions and reveres eccentric inventors. More than 56 square metres of reclaimed poplar was combined with steel ribs to create the elephant's sturdy skeleton. The attention to detail was extraordinary, from the flapping leather ears and deep wrinkles around the eyes to the puffs of dust sent up by its plodding feet, and the snaking, reticulated trunk.

The elephant no longer exists: Helen Marriage of Artichoke

Artichoke (creative company)

Artichoke, also known as the Artichoke Trust, is a London-based British company and registered charitable trust that stages arts spectacles and live events...

, the company that produced the London performance, said "Royal de Luxe were so fed up with being invited all over the world to perform The Sultan's Elephant, they just destroyed it."

A replica of the elephant was built in Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

(France) in 2007, as part of the Machines of the Isle of Nantes

Machines of the Isle of Nantes

The Machines of the Isle of Nantes is an artistic, touristic and cultural project based in Nantes, France.-Background:...

permanent exhibition. It is 20 feet tall.

Nantes and Amiens

The show was first performed in the French

France

The French Republic , The French Republic , The French Republic , (commonly known as France , is a unitary semi-presidential republic in Western Europe with several overseas territories and islands located on other continents and in the Indian, Pacific, and Atlantic oceans. Metropolitan France...

cities of Amiens

Amiens

Amiens is a city and commune in northern France, north of Paris and south-west of Lille. It is the capital of the Somme department in Picardy...

, from 16–19 June 2005 and Nantes

Nantes

Nantes is a city in western France, located on the Loire River, from the Atlantic coast. The city is the 6th largest in France, while its metropolitan area ranks 8th with over 800,000 inhabitants....

, from 19–22 May 2005.

London

The Sultan's Elephant show was performed in London

London

London is the capital city of :England and the :United Kingdom, the largest metropolitan area in the United Kingdom, and the largest urban zone in the European Union by most measures. Located on the River Thames, London has been a major settlement for two millennia, its history going back to its...

from 4–7 May 2006. The show started with a rocket "crashing" in Waterloo Place on Thursday May 4, smashing up the tarmac

Tarmac

Tarmac is a type of road surface. Tarmac refers to a material patented by Edgar Purnell Hooley in 1901...

, with smoke coming out from the bottom.

On Friday, the elephant arrived, along with the Sultan. An oversize marionette emerged from the rocket—this was the girl from the Sultan's dreams. The girl met up with the elephant. Friday evening the elephant wandered round St. James's

St. James's

St James's is an area of central London in the City of Westminster. It is bounded to the north by Piccadilly, to the west by Green Park, to the south by The Mall and St. James's Park and to the east by The Haymarket.-History:...

, while the girl went on a trip around London

London

on an opentop Routemaster

Routemaster

The AEC Routemaster is a model of double-decker bus that was built by Associated Equipment Company in 1954 and produced until 1968. Primarily front-engined, rear open-platform buses, a small number of variants were produced with doors and/or front entrances...

bus.

On Saturday, the elephant walked to Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square

Trafalgar Square is a public space and tourist attraction in central London, England, United Kingdom. At its centre is Nelson's Column, which is guarded by four lion statues at its base. There are a number of statues and sculptures in the square, with one plinth displaying changing pieces of...

, where it rested over lunch. Then the girl marionette was lifted by a crane onto the elephant's trunk, and was carried on 'Grand Parade' back to Horseguards Parade, with the 'sultan' sightseeing with a troop of dancers on top of the elephant.

The girl has a needle and thread, and likes to sew things, including a series of cars that were 'sewn' to the tarmac.

On Sunday, the show finished with a Grand Finale, in which the girl climbed into the rocket, which then 'took off'. This involved the rocket firing, with smoke and flames coming out of the bottom. The rocket didn't go anywhere, but when the top was removed from the rocket, by a crane, the girl had disappeared. She had travelled in time.

Whilst in London, the elephant and the girl were stored at the Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station

Battersea Power Station is a decommissioned coal-fired power station located on the south bank of the River Thames, in Battersea, South London. The station comprises two individual power stations, built in two stages in the form of a single building. Battersea A Power Station was built first in the...

, and were transported to the various sites in the early hours of the morning with a police escort. Many lampposts and traffic lights were removed to allow the elephant through. The police, who were more used to escorting large steel items overnight, were reported to have had fun with the event by making up explanations to members of the public. Between the performance days both the elephant and the girl were left sleeping at Horseguards Parade. After the performance the elephant was once again transported in the early hours of the morning back to Battersea Power Station. The return trip took longer than expected as some of the street furniture had been put back in place too early. The event, the biggest piece of free theatre ever staged in London, with an audience of a million people, was brought to England by production company Artichoke

Artichoke (creative company)

Artichoke, also known as the Artichoke Trust, is a London-based British company and registered charitable trust that stages arts spectacles and live events...

, who were also responsible for bringing the giant mechanical spider La Princesse

La Princesse

La Princesse is a 15-metre mechanical spider designed and operated by French performance art company La Machine. The spider was showcased in Liverpool, England, as part of the 2008 European Capital of Culture celebrations, travelling around the city between 3-7 September. In 2009, it was on...

to Liverpool in September 2008.

Antwerp

The Sultan's Elephant show was performed in Antwerp, Belgium

Belgium

Belgium , officially the Kingdom of Belgium, is a federal state in Western Europe. It is a founding member of the European Union and hosts the EU's headquarters, and those of several other major international organisations such as NATO.Belgium is also a member of, or affiliated to, many...

from 7–9 July 2006. Besides the elephant, the rocket and the small giant, there was also a carousel

Carousel

A carousel , or merry-go-round, is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating circular platform with seats for riders...

with fantasy vehicles.

Calais and Le Havre

Performed in the French cities of Calais

Calais

Calais is a town in Northern France in the department of Pas-de-Calais, of which it is a sub-prefecture. Although Calais is by far the largest city in Pas-de-Calais, the department's capital is its third-largest city of Arras....

28 September–1 October 2006 and Le Havre

Le Havre

Le Havre is a city in the Seine-Maritime department of the Haute-Normandie region in France. It is situated in north-western France, on the right bank of the mouth of the river Seine on the English Channel. Le Havre is the most populous commune in the Haute-Normandie region, although the total...

26–29 October 2006. See details in
French original and
English translation

Associated performances

The giant girl performed alone, without the elephant, in Santiago

Santiago, Chile

Santiago , also known as Santiago de Chile, is the capital and largest city of Chile, and the center of its largest conurbation . It is located in the country's central valley, at an elevation of above mean sea level...

, Chile

Chile

Chile ,officially the Republic of Chile , is a country in South America occupying a long, narrow coastal strip between the Andes mountains to the east and the Pacific Ocean to the west. It borders Peru to the north, Bolivia to the northeast, Argentina to the east, and the Drake Passage in the far...

25–28 January 2007 and in Reykjavík

Reykjavík

Reykjavík is the capital and largest city in Iceland.Its latitude at 64°08' N makes it the world's northernmost capital of a sovereign state. It is located in southwestern Iceland, on the southern shore of Faxaflói Bay...

, Iceland

Iceland

Iceland , described as the Republic of Iceland, is a Nordic and European island country in the North Atlantic Ocean, on the Mid-Atlantic Ridge. Iceland also refers to the main island of the country, which contains almost all the population and almost all the land area. The country has a population...

, from 9–12 May 2007.

Design and construction

Nantes and Amiens

London

Antwerp

Calais and Le Havre

Associated performances

Related links