The Victoria and Albert Museum

Like many of the museums that we visited, the Vitoria and Albert Museum was packed full of some amazing things. There was a specific section that was dedicated just to theater, dance, and performance. It was interesting to a full section just on these topics because in included items that were related to Harry Potter, Star Wars, and many other movies and show. I was not expecting to see things that were produced after I was born like harry potter. It was cool to see and be reminded that history is being created at every moment in time, maybe one day I will add a section to the museum one way or another. One of the pieces that I came was the puppet from the live production of War Hoarse. After watching The Life of Pie, I found this piece similar in many ways to those puppets used in that show. How it took sever performers to bring one puppet alive astonished me on how well they worked together. The fact that they are all coordinated in their movements and timing was insane to watch on stage. Even with the fact that you could clearly see the puppeteers your mind did not focus on them, you focused on all the small and intentional movements of the puppet itself. Things like a simple flip of the tale of the lion in The Life of Pie do so much to explain the emotions of the puppet. I recall reading about animation and how secondary actions, or movement that are small and not noticeable are key elements to making something feel real. Another major part of animation is using curved in animations compared to straight lines, recalling the performance I see both of those elements in the performance of Life of Pie. I am very interested in explore the complexity it takes to make a puppet and performance aspect of the design and may be exploring it in the near future. The theater, performance, and dance section in the Vitoria and Albet Museum is my favorite part of any museum that I have been to so far. It shows so many different elements that go into producing production. It amazing to see some of the technology used to create special effects. One item that I really enjoyed is equipment that produced real sparks during a sword duel. This was achieved by running a wire from the sword to the bottom of the show with a metal plate in the stage floor to transfer the electricity through the floor to the swords creating sparks on contact between the sword. I was not able to get through many of the photos before posting, look for them in the final trip video that will be posted in about a week or two.