|
|
Costumes, Masks and Puppets | African Masks | Bunraku Puppetry | Shadow Puppetry
Julie Taymor Biography | Sets, Lighting and Special Effects
 More
about Julie Taymor
Julie Taymor, Director, Costume Designer and Mask/Puppet
Co-Designer for 'The Lion King', has always created theatre. Born in
1952, outside of Boston she began at a very early age to put on small
shows, imagine new worlds. She became interested in all types of
theatre, including musicals.
At college she created her own major in the ritual origins of theatre.
After graduating, she studied Javanese shadow puppetry and was granted
a fellowship that allowed her to travel to Indonesia, where she gained
a great inspiration for her theatrical vision:
'What grabbed me was seeing theatre in its original function, its
absolutely most powerful creative state...theatre there is sacrosanct,
a daily part of your life that is essential to your being.'
On the island of Bali, she formed her own theatre troupe, whose first
work was called Way of Snow, based on an Eskimo Legend. She returned
to the US and designed diverse theatre projects such as the Odyssey,
the Haggadah, and Liberty's Taken, a wild and earthy take of the
American Revolution.
More and more, Tamor became known for what Eileen Blumenthal calls
'braiding together of global stage forms.' In 1986, she directed and
designed William Shakespeare's The Tempest. In this production, the
sprite Ariel was portrayed by only a ghostly mask, manipulated by an
actor dressed all in black. The audience could plainly see the actor -
on one level they could see the puppeteer and appreciate the
innovation of the craft and the actor's skill. But on a more
imaginative level, they could forget the actor and just see the
spirit, floating through the air. This is the essence of Taymor;s
theatre; not about fooling the spectators, but sparking their
imagination by creating the story with them.
|
 |
