the incredible and phenomenal journey of the giants to the streets of perth

The Little Girl Giant walks the streets of Perth.
The Giants are in Perth for the weekend!

So, for Valentine's Day, Simon and I spent our Saturday afternoon following giant marionettes up and down the streets of Perth.

The Giants is street performance art, created by Royal de Luxe, a French mechanical marionette street theatre company founded by Jean-Luc Courcoult. Since the 1990s, the Giants spectacular has toured city streets around the world, bringing delight and wonder to their wide-eyed inhabitants.

The summer 2015 event in Australia is titled "The Incredible and Phenomenal Journey of The Giants to the Streets of Perth", with the story unfolding gradually over the course of three days, featuring the main marionette puppet characters of the 6-metre-tall Little Girl Giant and the 11-metre tall Diver Giant.

Giant girl cruises the streets of Perth in a boat, wearing a raincoat to help keep herself dry amidst the splashes!
During her travels, the Little Girl Giant stumbled upon an Aboriginal community, where she was warmly welcomed, and she decided to stay.

One day, however, she realised that she wanted to return to her family again, and embarked upon a voyage across Western Australia in search of her uncle, the Diver Giant.

In the end, the Giants were reunited. They embraced, the Little Girl danced, and on the last day, they both left in a barge for their next exciting journey.

Diver Giant, the Little Girl's uncle.
I was grateful to be part of this unique spectacle - it was crowded, yes, but people were generally quite well-behaved, and it was a truly magical sight to see these giant marionettes trundling the streets of Perth, dwarfing the shops and the people in their presence.

There were several facets to the performance, where in addition to walking the streets, you could observe the Giants partaking in various activities - sleeping, exercising, resting, reading a book, licking ice cream, riding a scooter, taking a shower, changing clothes, drinking water, even doing a wee - in various locations in the Perth city. We didn't catch all of that, but we are happy to have experienced some great moments of the Giants up close. So thank you, Royal de Luxe, for this creative production, and thank you, Perth International Arts Festival and all the sponsors and supporters, for making it happen in Australia. You've got me hooked, and I hope to see the Giants again, somewhere in the world, someday!

Little Girl Giant in Perth, Australia.