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Thursday, September 19, 2013

The Dutch Puppet Show:Panta Rhei II

“...everything flows, reality is contantly subject to change...”
~ The Old Greek Philosophers, Heraclites ~

That’s the idea which basically gave the soul to “Panta Rhei II”, an impressive performance by ‘t Magisch Theatertje (Little Dutch Theater). For about 50 minutes, on September 14th, 2013 at Erasmus Huis, Jakarta, ‘t Magisch Theatertje was bringing a mystical ambience from the stage to all the spectators. The light was turned off, then slowly a play of the light was flowing in the centre of the opening box on the stage. The puppets was appeared with mystical movements and music. Once, a human figure with mask was also stood on the stage. For me, it’s an abstract and absurd performance, so theaterical thing! It’s a bit difficult for me to get the story line from those movements. But still, their performance was impressive and unique. During the performance, the spectators were not allowed to take pictures with any camera and was told to turn off the phone because it could be distracting the show.



Opening words about the story line of the puppet show before the performance 


After the performance, the old lady of de theatertje, was sitting on the stage while showing all the puppets to the spectators. Everyone were pleased to ask questions. She gave explanation that those puppets were made from toilet papers and papers by herself. Perhaps, it also can be named as one of Papier-mache, is a composite materials consisting of paperpieces or pulp, sometimes reinforced with textiles, bound with an adhesive, such as glue, starch, or wallpaper paste (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Papier-m%C3%A2ch%C3%A9). Awesome, right? Those puppets were kind of unique puppets with faces and figures of – I imagined- witches in cartoons or story books. The puppets were put into the hand and were played by the fingers. How the player managed the movements, the expressions of the faces, timing, to let the spectator knows the story line and also got involved in the ambience, was one of the impressive things that they created.


The bigger puppet

Naked version puppet


To know more about ‘t Magisch Theatertje and Panta Rhei II, just click:



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