Miwa Yanagi's Fairy Tale Masks

WARNING: These pictures and ideas are not for everyone. There are disturbing images and suggestions of the 'gruesome nature behind fairy tales' in this artist's work. I am posting what I consider to be the least disturbing of her photographs from the exhibit titled "Fairy Tale".

Despite my warning above, I do think the approach this artist takes is unique and relevant to the study of fairy tales. I'm posting what I consider to be the least disturbing of the set and including some quotes from an article so you can investigate further at your own discretion. The article does NOT include any unsettling images so if the topic interests you, yet you don't wish to see more pics I recommend just clicking HERE.

So what is it all about?

Artist Miwa Yanagi* has been delving into fairy tales to show the feminine role in all its forms (or, due to the use of masks, 'guises' may be a more appropriate term) while simultaneously bucking the traditional Japanese conventions of portraying bijinga (beautiful women pictures - the article linked to discusses this in detail). She combines theatrical techniques in her photographic presentations by way of staging, masks, exaggeration, costumes and metaphoric representation of literary aspects. Currently Yanagi has a number of exhibitions on display. The images shown in this post are from her work titled "Fairy Tale".NOTE: One of my favorite images (not included here in case some find it disturbing) is of a little girl cradling her 'grandmother' in the middle of a cut-open wolf corpse. Although quite a tender scene, there is, of course, some gore shown, albeit not human.

From The Japan Times online:

In the "Fairy Tale" series, Yanagi gives visual form to the tales of the Brothers Grimm and Gabriel Garcia Marquez's novella "The Incredible and Sad Tale of Innocent Erendira and Her Heartless Grandmother," which becomes Yanagi's image "Erendira" ...

... Rather than merely illustrating stories, however, Yanagi deviates from the texts, combining the supposed villainy of the old women in the tales with the innocence of the youthful girls. In "Snow White" (2004) the heroine dons an aged mask of wrinkles before a mirror and hands an apple to her reflected image, suggesting that there is some sort of complicity between the youth and the old woman. In another work, "Cinderella" (2005), further visual interventions occur. Here, a Balthus-like juvenile eroticism is given to Cinderella, around whom gather the three sisters, only one of whom may truly be "ugly," as she hides behind a wrinkled mask.

You can read the rest of the article HERE and see the rest of the eerie pictures from her "Fairy Tale" photo work HERE.

Yanagi's photography is on display at the National Museum of Art, Osaka until September 23rd.

*Miwa Yanagi is considered primarily to be a photographer, though her work encompasses many artistic disciplines.

Goldilocks Goes Into the Woods for 'W'

As promised, today I'm posting the 'W' shoot from 2007 by the same photographers (Mert & Marcus) who shot the September '09 Vogue "Into the Woods" spread (though that one is Red Riding Hood themed).

I don't think I've seen a whole fashion spread that plays with the Goldilocks theme before.

You can see that post HERE.

I'm not sure whether the model is a victim of fashion or of those poor 'de-furred' creatures enacting their revenge. Is it just me, or is there a lot of implied violence and death? (And I don't just mean of those poor animals, even though all that fur is, I understand, sadly not at all faux.) There seems to be less cohesive narrative to this shoot but then that wasn't the point.

(You can click on the pics to see a larger version.)

Um - OK, so maybe it's not just me, thinking this might come off as a tad controversial... it's pretty clear this girl didn't just take a nap in the woods.So did Goldilocks (or the original silver haired old lady*) ever make it back home? In one piece? We may never know...

The model for this shoot was Doutzen Kroes.

NOTE: The fact that this tale originally had an elderly main character and was, at least at one point, specifically changed to a young girl because it was thought there weren't enough tales with young people in them, is fascinating to me. Now days, with tale protagonists being mostly young girls and boys (or young men and women) the opposite would be true. It's quite hard to find tales with older main characters! There is only one volume I know of that's made an effort to collect these and I highly recommend it: "Gray Heroes: Elder Tales from Around the World" by Jane Yolen

The Science of Fairy Tales (Series) - The Little Mermaid's Voice

Ever wondered just how the Little Mermaid would have sounded, if you'd had the chance to hear her before she lost her voice? Well, there's a new underwater opera that may give us a good idea, beyond scientific sound experiments and singing whales.

The opera, which debuted and performed in May at the Queer Up North festival in Manchester, starred LA Soprano Juliana Snapper. She played a post-human creature surviving in a largely aquatic post-apocalyptic landscape, singing underwater, literally, using a technique she's perfected, for much of the performance.

How, you ask?

Here's her answer, quoted from TimesOnline:

“It’s not that different from singing operatically on land,” claims Snapper... “It uses the same basic process of compressing the air, creating a stream of soundwaves and allowing that to go into the water, with a little bit more care because at the end of the phrase you don’t want to pull any water in.” And how do you not do that? “You monkey with your throat a little bit. Underwater you really want to be able to shut that door.”

The pressure changes are the worst, “especially within the first 30ft or so. The oxygen in your lungs has compressed, so you can be down at the bottom and taking in air, but if I don’t sing on the way up with a lungful of air, then the lungs will burst because as the air decompresses, it gets bigger, so it will pop the balloon.”

OK, so I'm sure there's a whole slew of anatomical differences that would change the way this works for a mermaid. I'm guessing whales would have a better understanding of how to compress and decompress your lungs without damaging them as you sink and rise, yet even aquatic mammals require air to live while, traditionally, mermaids don't so either way we're not getting the whole story on how this would work.

But how about the sound? What would the singing really sound like?

Those of you in my generation would have grown up hearing the news from National Geographic that whale songs had been recorded for the very first time. I still remember the floppy little record my father got as part of the magazine. We played it over and over, marveling at how eerily beautiful these underwater songs were. You can hear some for yourself HERE.

But a mermaid is no whale. They're traditionally much closer to humans in size and vocal capacity. So do we have any idea of how a mermaid would sound underwater?

Again from Juliana's interview with TimesOnline:

Sound behaves quite differently in water than in air — Snapper describes the “airless” sound of a voice filtered through water as “like a humming and mewling”. The bubbles she produces have their own character. “The vocal melody is complicated by the percussive sound of the bubbles. If the bubbles are smaller or larger, then the percussive sounds will come more or less rapidly and they all have pitches attached to them. Sometimes you have a kind of second melody over the voice.” But does it sound like singing? “It does. I think it sounds like singing.”

You can read the whole article about the opera and Juliana's process HERE.

We'll return to The Little Mermaid in a future Science of Fairy Tales post, to discuss scientific possibilities behind another part of the story.

NOTE: Illustrations are by Jeannie Harbour and Gennady Spirin. Click on the images to be taken to more information and works. Photos are of Juliana Snapper in underwater vocal performance. To be taken to her website, click on the images.

Fairy Tale Fights - The Academic Version

The Story of the Three Bears by H.J. Ford from the Green Fairy Book

(Many thanks to Heidi from SurLaLune for finding the artist! I knew that style looked familiar... :D )

Less than a week ago Once Upon A Blog published notice of an anthropological study, said to prove the ancient origin of fairy tales. (You can read that post HERE).

It would seem Dr. Tehrani's announcement and his talk at the British Science Fair last week have stirred up an old, yet apparently still hot, debate in the academic ring of fairy tale studies.

In one corner we have the oral traditionalists; in the other: the literary-origin camp.

Heavy weights from both camps have already weighed in and traded some verbal fisticuffs.

Representing the literary-origin advocates we have the highly respected Ruth Bottigheimer:
(Quotes from The Star)

"Tehrani has bought into the newest wave of biology-based understanding of literature, taking evolutionary genetics as his model. But his views are based on slippery assumptions that can't be verified and that have no legs in the real world.

Of course, all narratives have ancient origins: Aesops's fables date back to the sixth century B.C. But "modern revisionists distinguish between different kinds of traditional tales" – folk stories differ from fairy tales – "and understand that they have histories of different lengths."

Elements of a narrative told here and there over time do not a "fairy tale" make."

! (exclamation punch, er, point added by the Fairy Tale News Hound)

Dark Fairytale - Battle by Ken Wong

Keeping his cool with a smooth 'bob-and-weave' response, we have Donald Haase (also highly respected):

"Yes, there is debate in the field over dating. Fairy tales are in the thick of the culture wars."

The editor of Marvels & Tales, a twice-yearly journal of fairy tale studies, says Tehrani is right to conclude that a form of Red Riding Hood exists in many varied cultures. What's news, however, is that the story may date back further than 2,600 years: "It's intriguing, it's plausible, but tracing the ancestry of fairy tales can be very difficult. I want to see his evidence."

Arguably the most well known and respected fairy tale authority, Jack Zipes, also firmly (and famously) in the oral-traditionalists corner, doesn't hesitate to respond, or to pull his punch:

"All our storytelling originated thousands of years ago, centuries before the print editions of fairy tales," he says. "Anyone who says they arrive only with print is just stupid. People have similar experiences around the world and always have had."

Ouch.

But this is just the warm up. They're all waiting eagerly for the paper to be published before winding up for the knock-out.

If you're interested in getting up to speed you can read the original news post HERE (which links to the original Telegraph UK article) and the one I'm quoting today HERE.

I'm planning on getting a ringside seat for the next round if I can. In the meantime, this is just begging for an editorial cartoon.

Ultimate Disney "Princess and the Frog" Preview & Party Event

Disney is having a 'preview event' for their feature animated movie "The Princess and the Frog". While the movie is due in theaters on December 11th, event ticket holders will be able to see the whole movie ahead of time. The event runs from November 25th till December 13th, multiple times a day, at either the Ziegfeld Theater in New York City or the Walt Disney Studios lot in Burbank, California.

There are a host of other activities too:

• all the Disney princesses will be in the same place at the same time (this is a first), including the newest, Tiana (from the feature being promoted)
• there are photo ops in special Princess and the Frog sets
• Disney animators will be on hand to teach guests how to draw the characters
• Princess and the Frog themed games and more
• Burbank visitors will also get the chance to tour the studio lot (an opportunity which doesn't happen much these days)

Full details can be found HERE.

Tickets for both locations can be found HERE.

Vogue Goes Rouge (as in Red Riding) for September Issue

Fairy tale fashion shoots remain popular, as is evidenced by Vogue's "Into the Woods" Red Riding Hood spread for the September '09 issue. (Personally, I love to see how the photos - consciously or unconsciously - highlight aspects of the fairy tales on which they're based.)

Fashion watchers have noted the similarities to a shoot done in 2007 by the same photographers, Mert & Marcus: girl in the woods, in autumn, pursued by 'wild' animal (and also titled "Into the Woods"). There are similarities - enough that the photographers may wish to try a different approach for their next few gigs - but all in all they're both beautiful shoots and have their own unique fairy tale aspects.

(You can click on the images to view a larger version)

For today, enjoy another/new look at our other favorite little girl in the wood, Red Riding, played by Natalia Vodianova. The fashion colors are almost exclusively reds with touches of gray and black so I'm guessing the suggestion is this Red is a little wolfish all by herself.I'll post the 'W' spread, which features fur and is Goldilocks themed, complete with teddy bears, in a few (3) days.

As a little bonus, Vogue's Grace Coddington, styled the Prada window on 5th Avenue (New York) in Red Riding Hood fashion to reflect the current spread. If you're in New York, you can go see it right now (and there's a good possibility you'll see the store mannequins bearing wolf heads while the LRRH window stays intact).

Lovely Graphic Design for 2 (Unused) Fairy Tale Covers

Here are a couple of fairy tale book covers I found recently by graphic designer Oleksandra Korobova (a.k.a. l-e-s-k-a on deviantArt).

I just love these!

They were to be part of a series but as far as I can find, have not ever been used. Such a shame! They would have had me picking up the books in an instant.

You can find more of her art and photography HERE.

Custom Fairy Tales

Once upon a time in the desert city of Yuma, Ariz., one young woman found a way to turn her passion into a business - and now she's on her way to a happy ending.

So begins an article at the YumaSun.com about local woman Tricia Romant who is creating custom fairy tales for people. These aren't like the 'insert-your-name-here' tales and books we've seen in the past either. Tricia gathers information about the people she's writing the tales for and from there she writes a new and unique story.

From her website:

Creative Tales was created in order to serve a need. We take your stories and memories and create a fairy tale based on your life. It is our goal to give our consumers a gift that they can pass down in their family that will live on long beyond their time.

You can read the rest of the Yuma Sun article HERE, which also has a lot of information about her process and options or you can see how to order your own custom fairy tale and/or read some of the ones she's already created HERE.

"Little Red in the Hood" Comes to Dothan, Alabama

Dothan, Alabama gets a chance to see a very special version of Little Red Riding Hood tomorrow, Saturday September 12, 2009.

Ed Vaughn, a born and raised Dothan local, has written a play based on LRRH with the aim of showing how youth can make a difference.

There's a personal agenda too - he wants to bring the 'neighbor' back his neighborhood and wants to illustrate just how to do that.

From DothanEagle.com:

This modern version, which is also a musical, tells the story of Little Red and her best friend, Ayanna, and their efforts to clean up their neighborhood, which has been overtaken by trash and “thugs.” The thugs are led by a man known as the Wolf — played by songwriter and producer, Jemmie “Fingerz” Watford, who was raised in Dothan and returned here to live about five years ago.

Jemmie “Fingerz” Watford, left, pretends to be Little Red’s grandma as Ahmazia Hardrick, right, listens.

...Little Red is played by 8-year-old Ahmazia Hardrick, a third-grader at Ashford Elementary School. Twelve-year-old D’Nasa Mitchell, who attends Beverlye Magnet School, plays Ayanna, Little Red’s best friend. Like the classic fairy tale, Little Red takes her grandmother dinner every day. But along the way, the young girl works to change her neighborhood and reform those going down a bad path.

...“I want people, young people, to be aware of what’s happening today,” Vaughn said. “Little Red and Ayanna —they prove that children can be the catalyst for cleaning up a neighborhood.”

You can read the rest of the article and get more information about the play HERE.

The play, "Little Red in the Hood", will be performed on September 12, 2009 (tomorrow if you're reading this entry when it goes live), at the Dothan Opera House. Tickets are on sale at the Dothan Civic Center box office. You can call 334-615-3175 or 334-714-4128 for more information.

NOTE: Painting by sphynx_ink. You can find more of sphynx_ink's work HERE.

Disney's Rapunzel Cast & Story News + "Rapunzel's Revenge"

The big news the past few days has been the confirmation of the cast for Disney's Rapunzel. While I'm sad to hear Kristin Chenoweth will not be the heroine as was previously rumored, the new leading lady, Mandy Moore, has grown some decent acting chops in the past few years and her singing voice will sound more along the lines of the classic Disney heroine (get ready for lots of "Mandy Moore lets her hair down" headlines). Her leading man, who's name has now been revealed as "Flynn Ryer", will be played by Zachary Levi (best known for his appealingly nerdy-heroics in ABCs "Chuck").

Here's a quote from empireonline.com, which also reveals a little more of the plot:

Rapunzel. It's Disney's first computer-animated fairytale, and stars Mandy Moore as Rapunzel herself and Chuck's Zachary Levi as Flynn Ryer, a roguish bandit. Alan Menken's writing the music for another musical tale, and Moore will of course be doing her own singing. We were also assured that this particular damsel will not be sitting around waiting for her prince to rescue her, but instead uses her 70ft of hair as a tool, a means of escape and occasionally an Indiana Jones-style whip.

Note in the concept art above how her hair trails along the path. I'm wondering if they ever address the cleaning and tangling issue...

And from The Hollywood Reporter:

"Disney's new Rapunzel picks up with the princess, famous for her 70 feet of golden hair, after she's been stolen from her parents' castle as an infant and imprisoned. Now a teenager, Rapunzel escapes and goes on the run with a bandit, as her captor pursues them."

Anything sound familiar? Specifically the lasso skills of our long-locked heroine? (Please note: I'm not accusing Disney of plagiarism - if you spend some time musing over what to do with really long hair and "make a lasso" is bound to come up at some point!)
If you haven't heard of "Rapunzel's Revenge" by Shannon Hale (yes, the same Shannon who wrote a retelling of "The Goose Girl"), then you're about to. Her red-headed version (Disney is using the traditional 'golden', though it is a little on the strawberry side if development art is any indication) uses her tresses to both escape her situation and save a whole lot of people from a bad situation, Old West style!

Oh yes - and it's a graphic novel. Now, I must admit, this is the very thing that turned me off. I love graphic novels but I'm super-picky about what I read and the art in this GN just isn't in a style that appeals to me (please note: the artist, Nathan Hale - no relation to Shannon, did an amazing job but, personally, I would have liked to have seen the pencil renderings for the panels.) Here's a preview:Regarding the story, here's one of the Editorial reviews/summaries from Amazon.com:

This is the tale as you've never seen it before. After using her hair to free herself from her prison tower, this Rapunzel ignores the pompous prince and teams up with Jack (of Beanstalk fame) in an attempt to free her birth mother and an entire kingdom from the evil witch who once moonlighted as her mother. Dogged by both the witch's henchman and Jack's outlaw past, the heroes travel across the map as they right wrongs, help the oppressed, and generally try to stay alive. Rapunzel is no damsel in distress–she wields her long braids as both rope and weapon–but she happily accepts Jack's teamwork and friendship. While the witch's castle is straight out of a fairy tale, the nearby mining camps and rugged surrounding countryside are a throwback to the Wild West and make sense in the world that the authors and illustrator have crafted. The dialogue is witty, the story is an enticing departure from the original, and the illustrations are magically fun and expressive. –Cara von Wrangel Kinsey, New York Public Library

I took my time purchasing the book and then took even longer to read it, even though I love Shannon Hale's storytelling. I wish I hadn't waited so long. I really enjoyed it and even though I'm more of a 'woods and rivers' girl than a 'sand dunes and desert' gal I thought the Wild West context worked really well. In fact, I would have happily read more (there is a sequel coming by the way). You can find a lot more information about the graphic novel HERE and by clicking on the comic images in this post (the cover will take you to where you can purchase it).Here's an interview with Shannon in which she discusses her love of fairy tales and writing books based on them. "Rapunzel's Revenge" is discussed too and there's a brief preview of some of the artwork from the graphic novel.


After two popular renditions of Rapunzel cracking her braids into action, you DO have to wonder what the Rapunzel Princess costumes are going to be like when the movie comes out in December next year though...