The Sultan’s Elephant

The Sultan’s Elephant is a show, specifically a piece of marionette street theater featuring a giant mechanical elephant. It was created in 2004 by the French theater company Royal de Luxe to commemorate the centenary of Jules Verne’s death and commissioned by two French cities, Amiens and Nantes..

The show takes 3 days to perform, is free, and occurs outside on the streets of the city. Its biggest performance was in London in May of 2006.

Basically on day 1 a rocket crashes into some town square (in London it was Waterloo Place).

The elephant arrives carrying the Sultan to see what’s going on. A huge marionette girl emerges from the rocket.

The Sultan has dreamt of her.

Girl meets elephant and sultan.

The girl walks around town and the elephant walks around town and on day 2, the girl gets on the elephant and together they tour the city.

The girl loves to sew and as they walk about she sews things, like cars to the tarmac.

Alas, all batshit insane things must come to an end, and so the girl and elephant bid each other farewell.

The girl climbs back into her rocket and time travels away.

Obviously the question of Why and WTF would be the first words out fo one’s lips. Do not bother yourself with such questions just accept the awesomeness.

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