Handspring Puppet Company: The genius puppetry behind War Horse

http://www.ted.com "Puppets always have to try to be alive," says Adrian Kohler of the Handspring Puppet Company, a gloriously ambitious troupe of human and wooden actors. Beginning with the tale of a hyena's subtle paw, puppeteers Kohler and Basil Jones build to the story of their latest astonishment: the wonderfully life-like Joey, the War Horse, who trots (and gallops) convincingly onto the TED stage.

TEDTalks is a daily video podcast of the best talks and performances from the TED Conference, where the world's leading thinkers and doers give the talk of their lives in 18 minutes. Featured speakers have included Al Gore on climate change, Philippe Starck on design, Jill Bolte Taylor on observing her own stroke, Nicholas Negroponte on One Laptop per Child, Jane Goodall on chimpanzees, Bill Gates on malaria and mosquitoes, Pattie Maes on the "Sixth Sense" wearable tech, and "Lost" producer JJ Abrams on the allure of mystery. TED stands for Technology, Entertainment, Design, and TEDTalks cover these topics as well as science, business, development and the arts. Closed captions and translated subtitles in a variety of languages are now available on TED.com, at http://www.ted.com/translate.

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[EmberWolfeh]

No, Sleipnir, the eight legged horse.

[sing55ist]

Really, that's ALL you got out of this? A few seconds out of 18 minutes? Wow. Just....wow!!!

[misspinkpunkykat]

Must be the same hacks who came up with the puppets/costumes for The Lion King on Broadway...

[sharzah1]

There are some videos here on Youtube that show just that....

[TheDingfish]

just saw the show a few days ago, mindBLOWING puppetry but i have to admit i found the play as disappointingly boring as the movie was, the story alone just seemed really weak, and nothing seemed to be a greater metaphor for anything, like the era or the society etc. plus i dont know if it was an off night or what but the acoustics of the voices were pretty terrible compared to most theatres in london iv been to and the lead boy didnt seem to be acting so much as earnestly shouting his lines...

[ktyfiend]

Now show this to a real horse & see how it reacts :D

[purplep30pl3eater]

Ahhh I went to see War Horse when it first came out in the theatre - nee to see it again, the puppetry is astounding. I loved the book as a child and so it is so special!

[elliyas jones]

i just saw the show a couple of days ago it was amassing when the horse is revealed it is so breath taking how big and life like it is