Archibald Caramantran is an international street theatre company specialised in medium- to large scale performances, at fixed locations or on parades.
Combining different art forms, including visual arts, dance, theatre, circus and music, the company utilises giant muppets and aerial dance to create dreamlike and popular shows.
Driven by the desire to surprise every day and reveal its poetry, Archibald Caramantran plays in open areas to meet the public and offer them a theatre of images which are at time sensible and absurd, marvellous and of distinct proportions.
In its creations, the company utilises giant muppets and aerial dance to build a special relationship with the public and act the city out. The aerial space becomes a natural playground for making and sculpting, using various methods: fabrics, mesh, dance in the air or building facades.
Since its creation in 2005, the company has earned international recognition. Its giant muppets have wandered onto the streets of cities and villages, from carnivals to festivals, in the marquees of the opera houses in France and overseas, Europe, Australia, Canada, Cuba, China, Asia, Russia, Africa… .The Artistic Director, Olivier Hagenloch, together with Christophe Evette (Les Grandes Personnes/The Big People) and Stéphane Meppiel (Les géants du sud/The Southern Giants), founded ‘The Big People’ (Les Grandes Personnes) in 1988 at Aubervilles.
For many years, Archibald Caramantran has been the privileged partner of the city of Carpentras and ‘the Unusual X’mas’ Festival. In 2018, the company became the resident company of the city. There, the artists present a new creation every year.
Its studios sit next to the city’s technical service centre, at the ‘Station market’ in a large building provided by the CoVe (The Agglomeration Community of Ventoux Comtat Venaissin). Its wish to bring people together has engendered an immersive experience, a poetic act, and sharing of emotions between the artists and the population.
Established in 2005, Fantasy Puppet Theatre is one of a handful puppet theatre companies in Hong Kong which works with a wide range of techniques to produce original puppet shows for children, youngsters and their parents. The company is made up of members from different background, including Chen Ying Ching, professional puppeteer from Taiwan, and Yip Wai Bun, art teacher for children from Hong Kong, thus enable the company to explore new grounds in modern puppetry.
Fantasy Puppet is committed to present productions full of fantasies so as to provide children with food for imagination. With its members’ love for Hong Kong, the majority of its works were based on local stories, while some of them drew inspirations from various media such as classical paintings, folk art, circus and nostalgic toys. Recently, more creative techniques have been introduced to the company’s productions, including the use of light and shadow, object theatre, integration of real-time projection to live puppet performance. Tailor-making their performances accordingly to the stories, the company has created over a hundred puppet shows.
In the early years, Wong Fai followed the puppet master, Li Yuquan, to learn the art of hand puppet play. He studied the art of shadow play from the famous shadow artist Tan Degui and string puppet play from the international puppet master Huang Yique. He assisted Master Li Weiquan in the creation of the "Xiangjiang Shadow Theatre" in Hong Kong, marking the first local shadow play performance in Hong Kong. Wong Fai has been frequently invited to perform overseas and participate in international puppet festivals. In 2013, he was invited by the Hong Kong Leisure and Cultural Services Department to attend the Guangdong intangible cultural heritage representatives performance. In the same year, he was awarded for promoting the development of outstanding figures in the arts and culture by the Secretary for Home Affairs.