Jacque and the Kelp Stalk

Here's a different interpretation of Jack and the Beanstalk: an underwater version!Artist Richard Peter Han explains his interpretation (from his BLOG):

Jacque is a deepsea treasure hunter and scavenger, when he comes across a kelp field and see's a giant sea monster climbing up a gigantic stalk carrying treasures up into his kelp lair.

And here he is, 'running' from the giant/sea monster on a giant nautilis.Here are a couple of design drawings for the main characters:I highly recommend clicking for the full view on the main paintings and the Jacque character sheet in particular - the scope of the paintings are beautiful and the character sheet is wonderfully expressive!

You can see more of Pete's wonderful designs, concepts and drawings HERE.

Charles Vess Maps "Instructions"

A little while back I posted the announcement that Charles Vess was busy working hard on a illustrated version of Neil Gaiman's poem "Instructions". (You can find that post HERE.) He is now DONE! (40 paintings in two months apparently - I can't wait to see the results.)

Mr. Vess recently posted his illustration for 'mapping' the land which the reader needs 'instructions' to navigate.

To see a larger version, click HERE or on the image and be taken to his site to see it there.

Charles has also posted a few interesting fairy tale maps he's found along the way and I thought I'd do the same.

"The Land of Make Believe" by Jaro Hess. It was created in 1930 and is thought to be one of the first times all the fairy tale 'lands' were put together as if they exist/ed in the same space and time. You can find more interesting information about this map HERE.

The one above is a real map of a tour (it's actually a self-navigated route most of the time unless there's a promotion like the current Disney one) you can take in Germany to sites said to be the inspiration for the local versions of the Grimm's tales. SurLaLune had a brief post about a current Disney version of the tour, which you can find HERE.

I'm surprised there aren't more maps of fairy tales and make believe, available. I'm positive I've seen a map for the whole story of Disney's Snow White (when I was a child - not recently) but I can't find it, or reference to it, anywhere.

Do feel free to post a comment if you have any information, or other maps to share.

Keep Their Fairy Tales Away From Hospital

Here's a Romanian ad campaign for a recent charity ball (August 28th, 2009) for the Steps Towards Life Foundation. The English translation on the posters you see here was released this last week (mid-September 2009).The charity ball was run by "La Motoare" Club.

Here's the TV ad (In Romanian, but it's clearly part of the same campaign with some storytelling at the beginning).

The ad shows the phrase: "Ține poveștile copilăriei departe de spital." It translates (very roughly) as "(Keep) youngster story children (?) out from hospital":



You can see the ads full size HERE.

"The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast" - the Musical

Paul Boyd's musical interpretation of Beauty and the Beast is going to Belfast for a season (December 4th, 2009 to January 9th, 2010), this time with extensive rewrites and a new production which promises to be funnier than ever.

The revamped-rewritten musical "The Tale of the Beauty and the Tail of the Beast" will be staged by Belfast's Lyric Theater and sounds like a lot of fun.

Essentially, it's Madame LePrince de Beaumont's Beauty and the Beast as performed by an 18th century traveling theater troupe with all the players preoccupied with their own personal stories, resulting in a (smartly put-together) comedy of errors.

Paul Boyd is well known for his excellent musical adaptations of fairy tales in the UK. You can find out more about Paul HERE.From the Lyric Theater's UK website:

This fun-filled musical follows an 18th century acting troupe, Monsieur Affable’s Performing Players, one of whom has gone missing, another has delusions of grandeur and all are reading from a script that is entirely in the wrong order. This well known tale is given a hilarious and unusual twist. The multi-talented cast plays numerous roles delivering some of Paul Boyd’s funniest lines, cleverest lyrics and most captivating score.

Live music, played on stage by the actor-musicians wielding an impressive variety of instruments, is an integral part of the play and is a hailed aspect of the production. Here's a lovely preview (of the music) in the new 2009/2010 trailer:

You can find out more about the production HERE (and if you click on the link at the bottom of the page for more information you can see some photos from past productions too).

Amnesty International's Graphic Fairy Tales

Amnesty International has a campaign in Chile, South America, denouncing violence against women that uses fairy tale characters.

I'm only going to show one of the two posters here. The other one with Snow White is far too graphic for a general posting.

The ad campaign is this:

"Violence against women is violation of human rights.

Denounce."

You can see the Snow White poster HERE (Scroll down to see a thumbnail of the Snow White one. You can click on it for a larger view.).

"The Brave Tin Soldier" Multimedia Shadow Theater Production

This German production from Meininger Puppentheater has been touring festivals for a few years now, most recently playing in Korea and Taiwan in July and August, but it's so unusual- both in the tale it uses and in the manner of the production - that I have to mention it.

"The Brave Tin Soldier", based on the Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale of the same name (a.k.a. "The Steadfast Tin Soldier") is a multimedia shadow play for children six years and older and asks an important question: "How much strength do people who don’t come up to our standards require to stand up to society?" (source)The Germans are known for their love and respect for fairy tales and puppet and/or theatrical productions of a wide variety of tales take place around the country (and outside it) every year. This 45 minute production appears to still be going strong at close to the ten year mark.Here's a description and review from livingscotsman.com a few years ago:

The Brave Tin Soldier, from the German Puppentheater am Meininger, also deals with the big themes of love and death and - given the intense, sad sentimentality of Hans Christian Andersen's original story - the performer Stefan Wey, a lonely-looking giant in ghostly white frock coat and top hat, is slightly less successful in avoiding mawkish self-pity and Victorian schmaltz.That doesn't, though, prevent this show from scoring a fantastic coup de théâtre by first inflating a giant tent in the middle of the floor, and then inviting the audience inside to witness a most amazing shadow-play, with all the images radiating from a giant pop-up book on a lectern in the middle of the tent. The effect is dazzling: Wey varies the scale of the images from miniature to giant by simply shifting his light-source a few inches; evokes a sea-storm by making the whole structure of the tent creak and heave around us; and signals the end of the story by making our tent-world world disappear with a twitch of a few zips. It's a slightly messy show, emotionally and physically, but the experience is unforgettable.

This sounds like something not to be missed! While you're waiting for the production to tour near you, why not try casting your own characters from the tale? Click HERE to find out more.

Hans Christian Andersen & His Tin Soldier Manhole Cover

When you go someplace new, don't forget to look down...

Manhole cover in Copenhagen with an image of Hans Christian Andersen and his well known character the Brave Tin Soldier.
(Found HERE.)
Here's the full view:Note the fish about to swallow the soldier, the rat he escaped from in the sewers and the little paper boat.

I'm wondering if the elements of this story, particularly the gutters, sewers, a canal (water and waste) and is said to represent Andersen in his younger years, is the reason it was chosen as the design around his image.

Some of the most beautiful manhole covers in the world are in Japan. There is at least one of Momotaro (a.k.a. Peach Boy) who is a well known and loved folktale character. The one shown below is from Okayama City.

Tori Amos and The Light Princess

NOTE: My apologies to my email subscribers who got this post in their inbox without any content earlier today!

Singer-songwriter Tori Amos, who's music is famously "fairy tale influenced" is well into development on a new musical based on a short story fairy tale by George MacDonald: "The Light Princess".

If you're not aware of the story it's a short, funny tale (with lots of puns and tongue in cheek) about a gravity-deficient princess who has trouble falling into/in anything! (She was cursed at a christening by someone who was forgotten from the invitation list- of course).

With chapter titles such as:
"Won't I Just?", "She Can't Be Ours.", "She Laughs Too Much", "Try Metaphysics" and "Try a Drop of Water", you can see there's a lot of 'levity' to this tale.

You can read the story HERE, hear the story HERE and for those interested in studying the form and metaphor of the story further there's an essay by Elmer Schenke available to read online that discusses the story called "ANTIGRAVITY: MATTER AND THE IMAGINATION IN GEORGE MACDONALD AND EARLY SCIENCE FICTION" - you can read that HERE.

But back to the musical.

From the independent.co.uk:

It figures that Amos, 45, once dubbed "Queen of the Fairies", should be attracted by a story about a princess whose lack of gravity causes her to float above the world. But as the North Carolina-born singer and pianist points out, MacDonald's fantastical allegory has substance and a malleable, enduring resonance, the princess's "lightness" being a vehicle for Amos to explore modern-day illnesses such as anorexia, and other elements of MacDonald's work lending themselves to environmental themes.

This being Amos, we can expect the work (which she hopes to complete by 2010) to be packed with feminist ideas. "The thing about the original story I wasn't crazy about is that the princess's disability gets blamed on an old hag," she says. "We're not going to deal in spells cast by old ladies; we're dealing with problems caused by power and greed, many of which start with men."

This sounds like a weighty interpretation of a story in which humor is integral to both the telling and the tale so I'm curious as to how Tori balances those elements in her version. She's working with writer Samuel Adamson on the story and has already written a few of the songs for her feminist retelling of the story.

Again, from the independent.co.uk:

Amos says some of the music in the piece is Wagnerian in approach, while one song, "Delectable Guy Pain", was partly inspired by the Shirley Bassey hit "Big Spender". There's an aria for the princess that Amos likens to a darker take on "Memory" from Cats. "Whatever you think of Andrew Lloyd Webber, he knows what he's doing with a melodic arc," she adds.

(You can read the whole of the long article, which discuss Tori's current projects and releases HERE.)

Here's Tori on adapting to the different style of working, with the people from National Theater (from spinner.com):

"It seems to be a full-time commitment," she says of the musical. "I've never written for other people before. Writing for a company and researching their characters, understanding how they speak, working closely with the playwright ... I've never experienced anything quite like it before. The collaboration process that I have when I'm making records is that the material is written and then you're working on arrangements. With 'The Light Princess,' another scene might be written or added or changed, which then will mean that a completely different set of songs have to be written for that scene. I like to work, so I don't mind how much work it takes. I'm not saying I'll never write another one. I'm enjoying it. But if you're writing a musical, you better like your collaborators. I happen to get along with them very well."

You can learn more about Tori Amos, read lyrics from her songs and see lots of lovely things HERE at her website.

I'm really looking forward to seeing how this musical turns out!

A Bundle of Fairy Tale Fiction

Here are a few books that have come to my attention in the last month. They're either fairy tales retold or the authors have woven fairy tales into the mood and fabric of the stories.

Click on the titles or the covers for more information about each one.

"When Mermaids Want to Fly"
by Rohini Ramakrishnan
(A retelling of "The Little Mermaid")
"In Sleeping Beauty's Bed: Erotic Fairy Tales"
edited by Mitzi Szereto
"Rosemary and Rue"
by Seanan McGuire
"Legacy"
by Cayla Kluver
"The Spindle & Other Lesbian Fairy Tales"
by Carolyn Gage
(Many different tales retold)

Delphine
by Richard Sala
(This one is a "twisted retelling of Snow White")
The Witch's Guide to Cooking with Children
by Keith McGowan
(A grade school retelling of Hansel and Gretel)

Pixar's First Fairy Tale: "The Bear and the Bow"

NOTE: If this post looks familiar, you are not seeing things. I'm re-posting it as I felt it got buried in other news a few days ago.

Pixar are busy working on their first fairy tale titled "The Bear and the Bow".

Apparently writer and director, Brenda Chapman*, loves Grimm's fairy tales and Hans Christian Andersen's tales. Her story is a combination of her love for those tales and a reflection on raising her daughter. (source: Wikipedia)

The "Bear and the Bow" takes place in "a rugged and mythic Scotland", where Merida, a member of the royal family, decides to give up her family name for her dream of becoming an archer. Merida makes reckless choices, preferring to run wild through the Scottish highlands than put on a dress and behave herself at court, resulting in peril for her father's kingdom and her mother's life. "Merida struggles with the unpredictable forces of nature, magic and a dark, ancient curse to set things right." (quotes from slashfilm.com)The characters made public so far are Princess Merida - whose hair is constantly tangled (voiced by Reese Witherspoon), King Fergus (Billy Connolly), Queen Elinor (Emma Thompson), a witch - who prefers to be called a wise woman - baddie (Julie Walters), a fifteen foot bear and Merida's younger triplet brothers.

Here's Reese Witherspoon on her character Merida(from pixarplanet.com):

"I get offered a lot of animated movies… [then] Pixar came along with [a] great character. A girl from royalty who would rather be a great archer? And she has a Scottish accent? Who could turn that down? You always go for the great character to play, even if she’s animated."

And here's a very interesting report from empireonline.com:

Though it's tempting to roll one's eyes at yet another female lead character that's a princess -- especially coming from Disney-owned Pixar now -- the movie is already displaying a refreshing change of pace by reportedly focusing more on the princess' relationship with her mother than the quest to find a prince. Even the inclusion of a non-evil queen is a big step for animated features which, often based upon Grimm's fairytales, overwhelmingly feature evil stepmothers and the like.

[Once Upon A Blog's FTNH: How interesting! This sounds like a long overdue updating of the independent/rebellious princess genre that doesn't rely on a romantic plot - there has yet to be mention of a prince, other than Merida's younger brothers, at any point, though that bear is looking a little suspicious to me. Reports are that the story does, indeed center more on Merida's relationship with her mother, so I'll reserve judgment on the bear! ;) ]

While only early concept art was shown at the event, Empire Online reports that it was indeed gorgeous. See what else they had to say by clicking over to the source.

(Source for quoted text: latinoreview.com )

The tone of the film is reported to be a mix of fantasy, humor and exciting adventure in a rich and mythically lush tale. I'm really looking forward to finding out more about this film.

"The Bear and the Bow" is scheduled for a Christmas 2011 release. NOTE: *Brenda Chapman was one of three directors on "The Prince of Egypt" for Dreamworks and was involved in story/development in varying capacities on Disney's "The Little Mermaid" (story trainee), "Beauty & the Beast" (key story artist), "The Lion King" (head of story) as well as for "The Rescuers Downunder" and "The Hunchback of Notre Dame".