Night of the living dummies

BY TOM HUNT

Mannequins that move at night to reveal a story will appear in shop windows tomorrow. When it comes to the hush-hush prep for Revolt of the Mannequins, French company Royal de Luxe are no dummies.

Despite jet lag, concern for friends in Chile, and having to talk through a translator, the enthusiasm Anne-Marie Vennel has for Revolt of the Mannequins is obvious.

"They are big, and tall, and small," she says, rising from the table, switching to English and gesturing that, indeed - they are big, they are small, and they are tall.

Vennel is the assistant artistic director for French company Royal de Luxe, the street theatre "superstars" responsible for Revolt of the Mannequins, being unveiled to Wellington tomorrow morning.

Vennel, with her European gesturing and enthusiastic talk, is discussing mannequins - mannequins she is at liberty to say little about.

Exactly what they will be doing in Wellington has to, she says, remain a mystery until they are unveiled in 10 Wellington shop fronts tomorrow.

"It gives life to the mannequins, not showing how it's done . . . it really makes it like it's shop-front mannequins with their own life."

Despite the mystery - even a staged photograph for this article was carefully stage-managed - Vennel shares some knowledge of what Revolt of the Mannequins is.

In 10 shop windows during the coming nine days, passersby will be able to see the mannequins in static poses during the day. However, observant passersby will notice that in the dead of night the mannequins will have moved and as the days unfold, so too does a story, in a sort of extreme slow-motion narration.

Vennel says each of the windows is an unrelated story but underpinning each is a common theme.

"The stories are like dreams; or nightmares," and there are hints towards legends and mythology, she says.

The title - Revolt of the Mannequins - also offers some clues.

The show has toured internationally - though the shop-window aspect is fresh to Wellington - and Vennel says public reaction tends to evolve over time.

"Usually the first few days are very quiet. Some people just walk past and don't know what to think.

"Little by little people realise it's a story and it changes every day."

The logistics alone are impressive.

Royal de Luxe has brought with it to Wellington 170 mannequin heads, as well as the various body parts.

"It's a very big work for us," Vennel says, adding that a crew of 22 will be out nightly, secretly moving the mannequins on to the next part of the story.

"It's not for the public to see," she says of the midnight moves.

Arts festival artistic director Lissa Twomey says variations of the show have been seen by "millions of people" worldwide.

"Consistent with all their productions are characters who share their emotions with the spectator - in the case of the mannequins, from love and tenderness to jealousy and revenge."

Royal de Luxe is famous for turning whole cities into stages. In Berlin recently it staged the fairytale The Berlin Reunion - A Giant's Tale for the 20th anniversary of the fall of the Berlin Wall.

It was the story of a deep-sea diver, The Big Giant, and his niece, The Little Giantess - a 5.5 metre puppet who walked and moved around Berlin with the help of 22 wire-pulling operators surrounded by "hundreds of thousands" of onlookers.

If it gets similar numbers for its Wellington shows, expect large crowds outside the stores.

Revolt of the Mannequins is at David Lawrence, Pearl, Robyn Mathieson, Stax, Portmans, Borders, Unity Collection, Farmers, and two windows at Kirkcaldie & Stains from tomorrow morning to next Sunday.

- © Fairfax NZ News