Disney's D23 Makes Fairy Tale News

Disney is having a D23 Expo for fans this weekend with several announcements and events concerning their fairy tale related products. I find all of this most interesting because the releases of Princess and the Frog and Rapunzel will most likely have the biggest impact on fairy tale awareness in pop culture over the next few years. Here's some quick links:

D23: Princess & the Frog Impressions: Some attendees saw a screening of 30 minutes of the film. The link leads to one viewer's impressions of the experience.

Disney's Fantasyland Getting Magical Makeover: The makeover, one of the most extensive ever in the park's history and is emphasizing Disney's fairy tale princesses. "With the new expansion, guests will be able to visit the Disney princesses in their own fairytale lands. There are also plans to build a castle like the one featured in "Beauty and the Beast." Some of the plans were leaked a few months ago and can be seen in greater detail at Magic Kingdom Fantasyland Expansion Plans Leaked.

'Princess and the Frog' celebrations announced; New Orleans not in that number: Early announcements of when and where releases for Princess and the Frog will take place. The release dates are being staggered for major cities, it appears.

And another article: Disney hopes its 2-D 'Princess and the Frog' doesn't fall flat.

De Vilde Svaner / The Wild Swans Film

Oh, how lovely and how very much not in English... But at least you can view the trailer and read an article about the new Danish film of The Wild Swans by Hans Christian Andersen, a variant of The Six Swans. Then hope that a DVD release is made available with subtitles someday... From the article Queen of Denmark makes film debut...as an extra.

Face smeared with soot and wearing rags, Denmark's Queen Margrethe debuts as an extra in a film based on a Hans Christian Andersen fairy tale on Friday.

The 69-year-old queen, known for painting, designing ballet costumes, chain-smoking and speaking frankly, will appear in "The Wild Swans" as a poor spectator to the threatened burning at the stake of the film's heroine, Princess Elisa.

"The idea emerged spontaneously as we were all working together on the set," said producer Jacob Jorgensen.

The queen designed sets and costumes for the film, which premieres on Friday, but her minor screen role was only recently revealed.

Andersen's 1838 fairy tale has earlier been adapted for ballet, television, an animated film -- and now a movie.

So I found the trailer and am sharing it with you here but an English one (for which I couldn't find embedding code) is available here: The Wild Swans trailer. Once again, not entirely in English, but beautiful to look at. Here is also a link to the official movie site: De Vilde Svaner. FYI, this is not the first fairy tale film Queen Margrethe has contributed to. She previously contributed to the production of Snedronningen (The Snow Queen), too.

Be sure to watch this one full screen. The details shouldn't be missed.




Leveret af Filmtrailer.com

Fairy Tale Mural Project

Morean Arts Center project lets visitors contribute to fairy tale mural shows another artist's usage of fairy tales in a community for a community. The mural project is now completed, but still displayed if you are in the St. Petersburg, Florida area. However, I love this concept and would love to see it used elsewhere.

Take one look at Kimberly White's community mural project and you will see color, texture and variety. Look again and you will see a living piece of art that changes magically with each new contribution. The mural has visitors talking about fairy tales and picking up paint brushes.

White has been an artist all of her life, and she loves fairy tales. Those endearing timeless stories that spark the imagination were the inspiration for her current project, the "Fairytale and Folklore Artistic Encounter."

"These stories live on from generation to generation through renditions and verbal exchange," she said. "It seemed fitting to do a collaborative piece in which all ages and abilities could join in and share ideas and interpretations of fairy tales amongst each other. Professional artists' work, thought processes and ideas will be side by side against what a child has painted."

I had the opportunity to participate in a similar project in summer 2008 with artist Libby Garner for a Little Red Riding Hood piece. (I also wrote an article about the project for Faerie Magazine last year.)

From the Morean Arts Center website where there are also photos:

Interested in folklore and fairytales?

Visit the Open Space at the Morean Arts Center and meet artist-in-residence Kimberly White. Originally from London, Ms. White’s paintings feature imagery borrowed from children’s stories and mythology. Get inspired as you see the artist create new work, then flaunt your own skill as you create a fairytale image of your own and participate in a storytelling mural with others in our community. Whatever your age or ability, this artistic encounter is sure to spark your imagination!

This activity will be offered starting August 25, Tuesday through Thursday, 10am to 5pm, through September 10. Join us for Saturdays at the Morean, October 3, from 1 to 4 pm for special activities with Catherine Cross, noted artist and teacher.

Fairy Tales and Theatre

Theatrical interpretations of fairy tales are some of the most common results in my habitual news searches. From small, local theatres to universities to off-Broadway and Broadway, there's a plethora of fairy tale related performances around the world every week. It's impossible to mention them all, but some sound so very intriguing that I'm always tempted to flood this blog with descriptions, links and reviews. Instead, I've decided to occasionally offer one blog with several short descriptions and links unless something appears to merit its own entry.

Here we go:

Down the Rabbit Hole: "Written entirely in Def-Jam Poetry, spoken word, verse and music, this one-woman musical, featuring 10 female fairy tale characters, poses the question, 'Does Happily Ever After Really Exist?'" An off-Broadway presentation in New York.

Briar Rose: The Tale of Sleeping Beauty: "The play is a musical based on various versions of traditional ‘Sleeping Beauty’ stories. Most of the story involves the villainous characters, Avarice (the evil fairy) and her minions, Vice and Versa." Already presented, this one is being shopped for new productions in New York and/or New Jersey.

Antonín Dvorák’s Rusalka: The first ever production of Antonín Dvorák’s Rusalka in Norway.

Tchaikovsky’s The Tsarina's Slippers: Rarely produced, this one is presented at the Royal Opera House in London this fall.

Matinee Magic Series: North Carolina Dance Theatre’s 2009-2010 Matinee Magic Series offers three family-friendly matinees. Designed especially for children's delight, the world premiere of Mark Diamond’s Once Upon A Time, September 19 and 20, opens the Matinee Magic Series. Other performances in this series will include Nutcracker in December and Cinderella in March.

Once Upon A Time begins with a grandfather reading classic bedtime stories to his young granddaughter. When the grandfather begins to fall asleep, the young girl’s imagination starts to run wild as her favorite fairy tale characters spring to life. The stories include “The Frog Prince,” “The Tortoise and the Hare,” “Jack and the Beanstalk,” “The Ugly Duckling,” “Little Red Riding Hood,” and “Peter Pan.”

The Crumb Trail: "As the story goes, hard by a great forest dwelt a poor wood-cutter with his wife and his two children, Hansel and Gretel. Um, then there's some stuff about starvation, child abandonment, kidnapping, cannibalism -- the usual bedtime fare for the kiddies. Surely you know this one. But you probably don't know it in anything like the way it's shown through the fractured, variable-focus viewfinder of "The Crumb Trail," a piece of intriguingly odd experimental theater by the Irish troupe Pan Pan Theatre, playing for four nights in the Time-Based Art Festival."

Little Red in the Hood: "“Little Red in the Hood” will be performed on Sept. 12 at the Dothan Opera House. 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." (Dothan, Alabama)

The Little Caribbean Mermaid and the Enchanted Ring: "The Little Caribbean Mermaid and the Enchanted Ring combines all the romance of a beloved fairytale with the hilarious elements of a traditional pantomime. The musical comedy tells the tale of Benjamin, a lobster fisherman's son who dreams of finding a great treasure under the sea. During his hunt he meets a beautiful mermaid and quickly falls in love, but the young sweethearts are from very different worlds. Their answer may lie with the Enchanted Ring they find, but there is someone much more sinister looking for the ring too." (This one particularly appealed to me through the interviews with the actors who have a great sense of humor and camraderie: "I can't wait until the panto is a success and the TCFAF decides to do the whole thing again on ice!")

Alice Hoffman and A. S. Byatt in the News

Alice Hoffman and A. S. Byatt are well-known for their fairy tale and folklore influenced fiction and both have appeared in the news this week.

First Alice Hoffman has an interview in The Jewish Ledger at Q & A with Alice Hoffman. I'm quoting the most pertinent parts here, but the interview is much longer than what I quote here so click on through to read more. Hoffman is perhaps best known for her popular Practical Magic among other best-selling novels.

Q: Is your writing influenced at all by your Jewish background?

A: The Jewish part of me is the storytelling part. I think what caused me to be a writer was being a reader, and I was very influenced by fairy tales. But mostly I was influenced by my grandmother, who came from Russia and lived on the Lower East Side of Manhattan and then in the Bronx. Her stories were for me the beginning of storytelling. It's interesting that I didn't even realize that in writing the "The Story Sisters" that it's really the grandmothers who are the storytellers - the kind of people who are at the heart of everything. That was really true for me with my grandmother; so that's really where my Jewishness comes from. I remember my grandmother telling me stories of growing up and it really seemed that she was telling me a folktale or a fairy tale, because we would be in New York City and she'd be talking about this place with a river that stayed frozen all year round and there were wolves, etc...and as a child I was just really fascinated by her stories. Much later on she told me that she had wanted to be a writer. My grandfather had actually been a poet - he wrote in Yiddish, so I've never actually read his work, but he was published in the Forward and other places. He wasn't well known, but he was definitely interested in that. I never really knew him, but I knew that about him.

Q: Fairy tales and magic are a theme in several of your books. Can you tell me why that is? Why is that such a strong interest of yours?

A: I was very fascinated with traditional fairy tales and the whole idea that they were really stories that were told from grandmother to grandchildren. That's the tradition of the fairy tale - that they are really stories told by women. Reading them as a child, I always thought that they were very emotionally true in a way that a lot of other children's literature wasn't at that time. But I think that there is the whole Jewish tradition of Jewish folk tales and, reading Singer and reading Kafka, magic is really threaded through the Jewish tradition of fiction.

Next, A. S. Byatt has been shortlist nominated for the Booker Prize in Literature for her novel, The Children's Book. You can read more about this year's shortlist here: Man Booker Prize shortlist announced.

The first of the six novels still in the running for the Booker Prize is A.S. Byatt's The Children's Book, which follows a fairy tale writer and her children during the summer before World War One. Olive Wellwood writes a private book for each of her three children (daughters Dorothy and Hedda and son Tom), "bound in a different color and placed on a shelf." Byatt's Possession won the Booker Prize in 1990.

The Children's Book is also supposed to be a gloss of E. Nesbit's life among numerous other influences. Possession has Melusine influences among others and is arguably her most famous novel.

More about The Path

I've posted about the video game, The Path, previously but perhaps the best review I've read so far was just published this week, so I though I would share the link: The Path review by Eric Keihl.

I'll quote his conclusion here which he provided after a helpful and detailed description of the game and its play.

I really can't tell you much more than that, especially since the game's story is so deliberately designed to be open to individual interpretation. Is it a cautionary tale about the dangers facing young women in modern society, or simply a twisted version of a fairy tale designed to keep you awake at night for fear of your own imagination? However you choose to look at it, The Path is a truly unique experience, and a great example of how video games can (if only rarely) do horror right. While it might be considered a little light on content, for $10 on Steam it's an absolute steal, and I'd highly reccomend it to anyone who likes their games a little on the esoteric side.

Mandy Moore Cast as Disney’s Rapunzel

This just announced: Mandy Moore Cast as Disney’s Rapunzel

Oh well, I was rather hoping for Kristen Chenoweth, since I'm a forlorn Pushing Daisies fan, but I understand the Mandy Moore choice. Even more interesting to me is Zachary Levi, from NBC's Chuck, as the male lead. He's very beta male in his roles so far which makes for fascinating character possibilities.

And how about that plot description? Sounds more like Petrosinella, but not. Cause she's a PRINCESS... (I'm a princess, you're a princess, don't you want to be a princess, too?)

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.