This March Labour Day weekend, visitors are invited to enjoy String Symphony, a free interactive performance installation where children and families bring to life a giant illuminated puppet called Leor under Arts Centre Melbourne’s iconic spire. Using more than a kilometre of rope, the four-metre handwoven giant festooned with 600 LED lights will be animated by ‘a symphony of people’ consisting of 12 participants and four performers. Together they can make it dance, jump and wave forming a connection through both storytelling and puppetry.
Created by Spare Parts Puppet Theatre, the free, all ages interactive experience can be enjoyed during the day or as dusk falls and the puppet is illuminated by hundreds of twinkling lights. Participants are selected by the performers and together they create a short story for Leor that is played out during each session.
Creator, designer and puppet-maker Leon Hendroff has created puppets for performance and festivals since 2005, including the Spare Parts Puppet theatre works Moominpappa At Sea and Fox.
“In a time when people can feel quite isolated, String Symphony offers an opportunity to have a tangible connection to others, through a physical being in front of them,’‘ says Hendroff.
Spare Parts Puppet Theatre is Australia’s flagship puppetry company and a driving force in the puppetry landscape since 1981. Its works have entertained and enriched the lives of tens of thousands of audience members both in Australia and internationally, including USA, France, Czech Republic, China, Korea, Singapore and Japan. The City of Joondalup was the key commissioning partner of String Symphony.
String Symphony is part of Arts Centre Melbourne’s year-round Families Program, which was launched in August 2009 and has grown in reputation to become a highly respected program nationally and internationally. Featuring intimate and large-scale theatre from some of the world’s most respected companies and a diverse range of interactive workshops, the program is robust and growing in size, scale and scope.
Arts Centre Melbourne and Spare Parts Puppet Theatre present
String Symphony
ALL AGES FREE event
8 – 11 March, 2019
Friday 8 March: 6 – 9pm
Saturday 9 March: 1 – 4pm and 7 – 9pm
Sunday 10 March: 1 – 4pm and 7- 9pm
Monday 11 March: 11am – 1pm & 2 – 5pm
Arts Centre Melbourne Forecourt
Visitors are encouraged to stay for as little or as long as they would like
