Puppets, Textiles, Flags
Kinetika is available for the design and construction of site-specific banners, backdrops, flags, costumes and large scale animated puppets for festivals, public events and carnivals. We are well known and respected for creating large-scale hand-painted silk creations – as seen in the fine detail of our carnival costumes and bespoke commissions. We also have a collection of dramatic giant 10ft puppets. These show-stoppers are manned by expert puppeteers to create a totally professional performance. Or we can create bespoke puppets or adapt and mend constructions, as with the elephant in the English National Opera’s production of Aida.
Examples:
FasciNation Champion
For the second year of Imagination Our Nation, a series of small uppets, called Champions, were created during a National Residency. Chaz, the East London Champion is a small girl from the moon who arrived in the Summer 2009. She is the size of a small child and four people are needed to operate her.
Midnight Robber Puppet
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The 16ft high Midnight Robber puppet was used in the 2004 Notting Hill Carnival, alongside the band Din Shuru in a performance, which explored the cultural journey from India via the Caribbean to the UK. Of all the colourful characters of carnival tradition, the Midnight Robber is one of the most beloved – and is immediately identifiable by his extravagant costumes and distinctive speech, called ‘Robber Talk’.
‘Robber Talk’ is derived from the tradition of the African Griot, or storyteller. The Midnight Robber speaks of his invincible ancestry and terrifying exploits; his speech patterns and vocabulary are characterised by a boastful, mocking style drawn from a variety of sources including the Bible, literary texts and school readers.
The Robber sports an oversized hat with fringed brim, the crown assuming different shapes (graveyard, coffin, The Red House); a flowing cape decorated with symbols of death and destruction; a black satin shirt and pantaloons and shoes or boots resembling an animal with moving eyes. He summons and dismisses his audience with the blow of his whistle while threatening them with a gun, sword or dagger – and a wooden money box in the shape of a coffin.
This costume involves a backpack molded to the puppeteer’s back, so is preferably hired out for procession with a specialist Kinetika Puppeteer.
Rivers of Silk
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At the opening of High Cross Shopping Centre in Leicester, on 4 September 2008, Kinetika created 24 hand dyed and painted silk banners, decorated using a batik technique to script the text of a poem. Each banner measured 3.5m long and 2.8m wide – or 168 metres of silk in total! One hundred local participants held the banners, creating the river of silk that was used to open the shopping centre.
1KM of Silk for The Olympic Torch Relay
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In 2004, Kinetika were commissioned by Greenwich and Docklands International Festival to deliver a project welcoming the Olympic Flame to London. In response we created what was, at 990 metres long, our largest piece of hand dyed and printed silk to date. In addition, Kinetika artists worked with 100 schools in 11 London boroughs to produce a series of welcoming banners decorated the torch’s route.
The Salisbury Cathedral Display - 1998/9
Fifteen square metres of hand dyed silks were created as backdrops for classical music performances taking place in Salisbury Cathedral.
Trafalgar Square Re-Opening
Kinetika were commissioned to create a huge piece of hand-dyed silk, the focal point for the unveiling of the newly developed and pedestrianised square.
