Adrian Kohler: Well, we're here today to talk about the evolution of a puppet horse.
Adrian Kohler: Prišli sme vám porozprávať o evolúcii bábkového koňa.
Basil Jones: But actually we're going to start this evolution with a hyena.
Basil Jones: Ale túto evolúciu vlastne začneme s hyenou.
AK: The ancestor of the horse. Okay, we'll do something with it. (Laughter) Hahahaha. The hyena is the ancestor of the horse because it was part of a production called "Faustus in Africa," a Handspring Production from 1995, where it had to play draughts with Helen of Troy. This production was directed by South African artist and theater director, William Kentridge. So it needed a very articulate front paw. But, like all puppets, it has other attributes.
AK: Ktorá je predchodcom koňa. Niečo s tým spravíme. (Smiech) Hahahahahahahahaha. Hyena je predchodcom koňa, pretože bola súčasťou produkcie nazvanej "Faustus v Afrike" spoločnosti Handspring Production z roku 1995, kde musela hrať dámu s Helenou Trójskou. Túto produkciu režíroval juhoafrický umelec a divadelný režisér William Kentridge. Takže potrebovala presvedčivo hýbať s prednou labou. Ale, tak ako všetky bábky, mala aj iné vlastnosti.
BJ: One of them is breath, and it kind of breathes.
BJ: Jednou z nich je dych, akoby vedela dýchať.
AK: Haa haa haaa.
AK: Haa haa haaa.
BJ: Breath is really important for us. It's the kind of original movement for any puppet for us onstage. It's the thing that distinguishes the puppet --
BJ: Dýchanie je pre nás dôležité. Je to základný pohyb pre každú bábku na javisku. To odlišuje bábku --
AK: Oops.
AK: Oops.
BJ: From an actor. Puppets always have to try to be alive. It's their kind of ur-story onstage, that desperation to live.
BJ: od herca. Bábky sa vždy musia snažiť byť živé. Je to príbeh ich javiskového života, tá zúfalá túžba žiť.
AK: Yeah, it's basically a dead object, as you can see, and it only lives because you make it. An actor struggles to die onstage, but a puppet has to struggle to live. And in a way that's a metaphor for life.
AK: Áno, je to vlastne neživý predmet, ako môžete vidieť, ktorý ožije len preto, že ho prinútite. Herec sa snaží na javisku zomrieť, ale bábka sa snaží na javisku ožiť. A istým spôsobom je to metafora života.
BJ: So every moment it's on the stage, it's making the struggle. So we call this a piece of emotional engineering that uses up-to-the-minute 17th century technology -- (Laughter) to turn nouns into verbs.
BJ: Takže každá chvíľa na javisku je boj. Voláme to emocionálne inžinierstvo, ktoré využíva najmodernejšiu technológiu 17. storočia -- (Smiech) na to, aby premenila podstatné mená na slovesá.
AK: Well actually I prefer to say that it's an object constructed out of wood and cloth with movement built into it to persuade you to believe that it has life.
AK: Ja zvyknem hovoriť, že je to predmet vytvorený z dreva a látky do ktorého vložíte pohyb, aby ste niekoho presvedčili, že žije.
BJ: Okay so.
BJ: Takže tak.
AK: It has ears that move passively when the head goes.
AK: Jej uši sa hýbu spolu s hlavou.
BJ: And it has these bulkheads made out of plywood, covered with fabric -- curiously similar, in fact, to the plywood canoes that Adrian's father used to make when he was a boy in their workshop.
BJ: A tieto podpery sú vyrobené z preglejky pokryté látkou -- podobné preglejkovým kanoe, ktoré Adrianov otec vyrábal, keď bol chlapcom.
AK: In Port Elizabeth, the village outside Port Elizabeth in South Africa.
AK: V Port Elizabeth v Juhoafrickej republike.
BJ: His mother was a puppeteer. And when we met at art school and fell in love in 1971, I hated puppets. I really thought they were so beneath me. I wanted to become an avant-garde artist -- and Punch and Judy was certainly not where I wanted to go. And, in fact, it took about 10 years
BJ: Jeho matka bola bábkoherečka. A keď sme sa streli na umeleckej škole a zaľúbili sa v roku 1971, nenávidel som bábky. Myslel som si, že je to hlboko pod moju úroveň. Chcel som sa stať avantgardným umelcom -- a Punch a Judy určite neboli smerom, ktorým som chcel ísť. Vlastne mi trvalo skoro 10 rokov
to discover the Bambara Bamana puppets of Mali in West Africa, where there's a fabulous tradition of puppetry, to learn a renewed, or a new, respect for this art form.
objaviť Bamaro bambano bábky v Mali v západnej Afrike, kde je starodávna tradícia bábkoherectva, aby som sa naučil novému rešpektu voči tejto forme umenia.
AK: So in 1981, I persuaded Basil and some friends of mine to form a puppet company. And 20 years later, miraculously, we collaborated with a company from Mali, the Sogolon Marionette Troupe of Bamako, where we made a piece about a tall giraffe. It was just called "Tall Horse," which was a life-sized giraffe.
AK: A tak som v roku 1981 presvedčil Basila a niekoľko mojich priateľov, aby sme založili bábkovú spoločnosť. A o 20 rokov neskôr, akoby zázrakom, sme spolupracovali so spoločnosťou z Mali, Sogolonskou Marionetovou skupinou z Bamaka, kde sme hrali hru o vysokej žirafe. Volala sa "Vysoký kôň", ktorým bola žirafa v životnej veľkosti.
BJ: And here again, you see the same structure. The bulkheads have now turned into hoops of cane, but it's ultimately the same structure. It's got two people inside it on stilts, which give them the height, and somebody in the front who's using a kind of steering wheel to move that head.
BJ: A tu znovu vidíte rovnakú štruktúru. Podpory sa zmenili na pásy z trstiny, ale je to tá istá štruktúra. Vnútri nej sú dvaja ľudia na chodúľoch, ktoré im dávajú výšku, a niekto vpredu používa niečo ako volant na pohyby hlavy.
AK: The person in the hind legs is also controlling the tail, a bit like the hyena -- same mechanism, just a bit bigger. And he's controlling the ear movement.
AK: Osoba v zadných nohách tiež kontroluje chvost, tak trochu ako hyena -- rovnaký mechanizmus, len vo väčšom. A on kontroluje pohyby uší.
BJ: So this production was seen by Tom Morris of the National Theatre in London. And just around that time, his mother had said, "Have you seen this book by Michael Morpurgo called 'War Horse'?"
BJ: Túto produkciu videl Tom Morris z Národného divadla v Londýne. A vtedy niekedy jeho mama povedala, "Videl si tú knihu od Michaela Morpurga 'Vojnový kôň'?"
AK: It's about a boy who falls in love with a horse. The horse is sold to the First World War, and he joins up to find his horse.
AK: Je to o chlapcovi, ktorý sa zaľúbi do koňa. Keď koňa predajú, aby bojoval v prvej svetovej vojne, chlapec sa tiež prihlási do armády, aby ho našiel.
BJ: So Tom gave us a call and said, "Do you think you could make us a horse for a show to happen at the National Theatre?"
BJ: Takže Tom nám zavolal a povedal, "Myslíte si, že by ste vedeli vyrobiť koňa pre predstavenie v Národnom divadle?"
AK: It seemed a lovely idea.
AK: Vyzeralo to ako naozaj dobrý nápad.
BJ: But it had to ride. It had to have a rider.
BJ: Ale kôň musel uniesť jazdca.
AK: It had to have a rider, and it had to participate in cavalry charges. (Laughter) A play about early 20th century plowing technology and cavalry charges was a little bit of a challenge for the accounting department at the National Theatre in London. But they agreed to go along with it for a while. So we began with a test.
AK: Musel uniesť jazdca, a musel sa zúčastniť vojenských útokov jazdectva. (Smiech) Hra o technológii orby skorého 20. storočia a jazdecké útoky boli menšou výzvou pre účtovné oddelenie Národného divadla v Londýne. Ale súhlasili. Začali sme s testom.
BJ: This is Adrian and Thys Stander, who went on to actually design the cane system for the horse, and our next-door neighbor Katherine, riding on a ladder. The weight is really difficult when it's up above your head.
BJ: Toto je Adrian a Thys Stander, ktorý vlastne navrhoval podporný systém pre koňa a naša susedka Katherine, ktorá jazdí na rebríku. Váha je naozaj problém, keď je nad úrovňou hlavy.
AK: And once we put Katherine through that particular brand of hell, we knew that we might be able to make a horse, which could be ridden. So we made a model. This is a cardboard model, a little bit smaller than the hyena. You'll notice that the legs are plywood legs and the canoe structure is still there.
AK: A keď sme Katherine previedli cez peklo všetkých tých skúšok, vedeli sme, že budeme schopní vyrobiť koňa, ktorý unesie jazdca. A tak sme vyrobili model. Toto je lepenkový model trochu menší ako hyena. Všimnite si, že nohy sú z preglejky a štruktúra kanoe tam stále je.
BJ: And the two manipulators are inside. But we didn't realize at the time that we actually needed a third manipulator, because we couldn't manipulate the neck from inside and walk the horse at the same time.
BJ: A dvaja manipulátori sú vnútri. Ale vtedy sme si neuvedomili, že budeme potrebovať ešte tretieho, pretože sa nedá ovládať krk zvnútra a zároveň s koňom kráčať.
AK: We started work on the prototype after the model was approved, and the prototype took a bit longer than we anticipated. We had to throw out the plywood legs and make new cane ones. And we had a crate built for it. It had to be shipped to London. We were going to test-drive it on the street outside of our house in Cape Town, and it got to midnight and we hadn't done that yet.
AK: Začali sme pracovať na prototype, po tom, čo bol model schválený, a prototyp trval trochu dlhšie ako sme predpokladali. Museli sme vyhodiť preglejkové nohy a vyrobiť nové z trstiny. Dali sme preňho postaviť dopravnú klietku, ktorú museli do Londýna priviezť. Skúšobnú jazdu sme chceli urobiť pred našim domom v Kapskom meste, ale prišla polnoc a my sme to ešte nemali hotové.
BJ: So we got a camera, and we posed the puppet in various galloping stances. And we sent it off to the National Theatre, hoping that they believed that we created something that worked. (Laughter)
BJ: Tak sme vzali kameru, a postavili sme bábku do rôznych pozícii pohybu. A poslali sme ich do Národného divadla a dúfali sme, že veria, že sme vytvorili niečo, čo funguje. (Smiech)
AK: A month later, we were there in London with this big box and a studio full of people about to work with us.
AK: O mesiac neskôr sme boli v Londýne s touto veľkou krabicou v štúdiu plnom ľudí, ktorí s nami mali pracovať.
BJ: About 40 people.
BJ: Okolo 40 ľudí.
AK: We were terrified. We opened the lid, we took the horse out, and it did work; it walked and it was able to be ridden. Here I have an 18-second clip of the very first walk of the prototype. This is in the National Theatre studio, the place where they cook new ideas. It had by no means got the green light yet. The choreographer, Toby Sedgwick, invented a beautiful sequence where the baby horse, which was made out of sticks and bits of twigs, grew up into the big horse. And Nick Starr, the director of the National Theatre, saw that particular moment, he was standing next to me -- he nearly wet himself. And so the show was given the green light. And we went back to Cape Town and redesigned the horse completely. Here is the plan.
AK: Boli sme vystrašení. Otvorili sme krabicu, vybrali koňa von a fungoval, chodil a dalo sa na ňom jazdiť. Tu máme 18-sekundový klip prvých krokov prototypu. Toto je v štúdiu Národného divadla, na mieste, kde vznikajú nové nápady. V žiadnom prípade ešte nemal istú rolu v hre. Choreograf, Toby Sedgwick, pripravil nádhernú pasáž, kde žriebätko, vyrobené z paličiek a vetvičiek, vyrastie a stane sa z neho veľký kôň. Nick Starr, režisér Národného divadla, tú pasáž videl -- stál vedľa mňa -- a takmer sa pomočil. A tak hra dostala zelenú. Vrátili sme sa do Kapského mesta a nanovo sme navrhli celého koňa. Tu je plán.
(Laughter)
(Smiech)
And here is our factory in Cape Town where we make horses. You can see quite a lot of skeletons in the background there. The horses are completely handmade. There is very little 20th century technology in them. We used a bit of laser cutting on the plywood and some of the aluminum pieces. But because they have to be light and flexible, and each one of them is different, they can't be mass-produced, unfortunately. So here are some half-finished horses ready to be worked in London. And now we would like to introduce you to Joey. Joey boy, you there? Joey. (Applause) (Applause) Joey. Joey, come here. No, no, I haven't got it. He's got it; it's in his pocket.
A tu je naša fabrika v Kapskom meste, kde koňov vyrábame. Môžete tam vidieť niekoľko kostier. Kone sú vyrábané celé ručne. Je v nich len veľmi málo technológie 20. storočia. Použili sme laserové rezanie preglejky a niekoľko hliníkových kusov. Ale pretože musia byť ľahké a ohybné a každý z nich je iný, nemôžu byť vyrábané masovo, nanešťastie. Tu je niekoľko napoly dokončených koňov, pripravených na prevoz a dokončenie v Londýne. A teraz by sme vám radi predstavili Joeyho. Joey, si tam? Joey. (Potlesk) (Potlesk) Joey. Joey, poď sem. Nie, nie, ja to nemám. On to má vo vrecku.
BJ: Joey. AK: Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey. Come here. Stand here where people can see you. Move around. Come on. I'd just like to describe -- I won't talk too loud. He might get irritated. Here, Craig is working the head. He has bicycle brake cables going down to the head control in his hand. Each one of them operates either an ear, separately, or the head, up and down. But he also controls the head directly by using his hand. The ears are obviously a very important emotional indicator of the horse. When they point right back, the horse is fearful or angry, depending upon what's going on in front of him, around him. Or, when he's more relaxed, the head comes down and the ears listen, either side. Horses' hearing is very important. It's almost more important than their eyesight. Over here, Tommy's got what you call the heart position. He's working the leg. You see the string tendon from the hyena, the hyena's front leg, automatically pulls the hoop up. (Laughter) Horses are so unpredictable. (Laughter) The way a hoof comes up with a horse immediately gives you the feeling that it's a convincing horse action. The hind legs have got the same action.
BJ: Joey. AK: Joey, Joey, Joey, Joey. Poď sem. Postav sa tak, aby ťa ľudia videli. Prejdi sa trochu. Len by som rád opísal -- nebudem rozprávať veľmi nahlas. Mohol by sa vystrašiť. Craig pracuje s hlavou. Pomocou brzdových káblov z bicykla kontroluje pohyby hlavou nadol. Každý z nich má na starosti buď jedno ucho alebo hlavu, nahor a nadol. Ale tiež priamo ovláda hlavu pomocou ruky. Uši sú zjavne veľmi dôležitým emocionálnym ukazovateľom koňa. Keď ukazujú rovno dozadu, kôň je vystrašený alebo nahnevaný, podľa toho, čo sa deje pred ním a okolo neho. Alebo, keď je pokojný, jeho hlava sa skloní a uši počúvajú, každé na jednej strane. Sluch je pre kone veľmi dôležitý. Takmer dôležitejší ako zrak. Tu má Tommy takzvanú pozíciu srdca. Pracuje s nohou. Vidíte šľachu z nite z hyeny, z jej prednej nohy, ktorá to automaticky potiahne kopyto hore. (Smiech) Kone sú tak nepredvídateľné. (Smiech) Spôsob, akým kôň dvíha kopyto, vám dá okamžite pocit, že sa dívate na skutočného koňa. Zadné nohy sa vedia rovnako hýbať.
BJ: And Mikey also has, in his fingers, the ability to move the tail from left to right, and up and down with the other hand. And together, there's quite a complex possibility of tail expression.
BJ: A Mikey tiež vie so svojimi prstami hýbať chvostom zľava doprava a hore a dole s druhou rukou. Dokopy to dáva celkom presvedčivé možnosti pohybov chvosta.
AK: You want to say something about the breathing?
AK: Chceš niečo povedať o dýchaní?
BJ: We had a big challenge with breathing. Adrian thought that he was going to have to split the chest of the puppet in two and make it breathe like that -- because that's how a horse would breathe, with an expanded chest. But we realized that, if that were to be happening, you wouldn't, as an audience, see the breath. So he made a channel in here, and the chest moves up and down in that channel. So it's anti-naturalistic really, the up and down movement, but it feels like breath. And it's very, very simple because all that happens is that the puppeteer breathes with his knees.
BJ: Dýchanie bolo veľkou výzvou. Adrian mal nápad, že rozdelíme hruď bábky napoly a bude dýchať takto -- pretože tak kone dýchajú, rozširovaním hrudníka. Ale uvedomili sme si, že ak by to tak bolo, vy ako diváci by ste to dýchanie nevideli. A tak urobil kanál tu vnútri a v ňom sa pohybuje hrudník nahor a nadol. Ten pohyb hore a dole v skutočnosti nie je prirodzený, ale vyzerá to ako dýchanie. A je veľmi veľmi jednoduchý, pretože jediné, čo treba, je, aby bábkar dýchal svojimi kolenami.
AK: Other emotional stuff. If I were to touch the horse here on his skin, the heart puppeteer can shake the body from inside and get the skin to quiver. You'll notice, of course, that the puppet is made out of cane lines. And I would like you to believe that it was an aesthetic choice, that I was making a three-dimensional drawing of a horse that somehow moves in space. But of course, it was the cane is light, the cane is flexible, the cane is durable and the cane is moldable. And so it was a very practical reason why it was made of cane.
AK: Ďalšie emocionálne veci. Ak sa tu dotknem jeho srsti, srdcový bábkar môže zatriasť telom zvnútra a jeho koža sa zachvie. Samozrejme si všimnete, že bábka je vyrobená z trstinových paličiek. Chcel by som, aby ste si mysleli, že to tak je z estetického hľadiska, že som urobil trojdimenzionálnu kresbu koňa, ktorá sa hýbe v priestore. Ale pravdaže, bolo to preto, že trstina je ľahká, trstina je pružná, trstina vydrží a trstina je tvárna. Takže z trstiny je vyrobený z veľmi praktických dôvodov.
The skin itself is made out of a see-through nylon mesh, which, if the lighting designer wants the horse to almost disappear, she can light the background and the horse becomes ghostlike. You see the skeletal structure of it. Or if you light it from above, it becomes more solid. Again, that was a practical consideration. The guys inside the horse have to be able to see out. They have to be able to act along with their fellow actors in the production. And it's very much an in-the-moment activity that they're engaged in. It's three heads making one character.
Koža je vyrobená z priehľadnej nylonovej mriežky, pričom, ak osvetľovač chce, aby kôň takmer zmizol, môže nasvietiť pozadie a z koňa sa stane duch. Môžete vidieť len jeho kostru. Alebo keď ho nasvietite zhora, už nie je priehľadný. Znovu to bolo rozhodnutie z praktických dôvodov. Chlapi vo vnútri musia vidieť von. Musia byť schopní hrať popri ich spoluhercoch na javisku. Viac menej je to celé o tom, čo urobia tu a teraz. Tri hlavy stvárňujú jednu postavu.
But now we would like you to put Joey through some paces. And plant.
Teraz by sa Joey mohol trochu poprechádzať. A postaviť sa.
(Whinny)
(Erdžanie)
Thank you. And now just -- (Applause) All the way from sunny California we have Zem Joaquin who's going to ride the horse for us.
Ďakujem. A teraz -- (Potlesk) Až zo slnečnej Kalifornie k nám prišla Zem Joaquin, ktorá si na koňovi zajazdí.
(Applause)
(Potlesk)
(Applause)
(Potlesk)
(Music)
(Hudba)
So we would like to stress that the performance you see in the horse is three guys who have studied horse behavior incredibly thoroughly.
Chceli by sme zdôrazniť, že pohyby a správanie koňa, ktoré vidíte, sú traja muži, ktorí podrobne preštudovali správanie koní.
BJ: Not being able to talk to one another while they're onstage because they're mic'd. The sound that that very large chest makes, of the horse -- the whinnying and the nickering and everything -- that starts usually with one performer, carries on with a second person and ends with a third.
BJ: Na javisku sa nemôžu rozprávať, pretože majú mikrofóny. Zvuk, ktorý vyrobí tá veľká konská hruď -- erdžanie a dýchanie a všetko -- to obyčajne začína s jedným hercom, pokračuje s druhým a končí s tretím.
AK: Mikey Brett from Leicestershire. (Applause) Mikey Brett, Craig, Leo, Zem Joaquin and Basil and me.
AK: Mikey Brett z Leicetershire. (Potlesk) Mikey Brett, Craig, Leo, Zem Joaquin a Basil a ja.
(Applause)
(Potlesk)
Thank you. Thank you.
Ďakujem. Ďakujem.
(Applause)
(Potlesk)