It’s Thursday and my fourth day in Belfast. With three work-days left until the parade, the giant puppets have embodied some really interesting shapes and sizes and styles. One of the most impressive has to be Philippe’s. On his puppet’s right arm, a beautifully crafted miniature monkey swings 360° from a structure made out of wood. In a similar vein, Isabelle’s puppet carries with it a small round box that pops open to reveal a Wallace and Gromit-style character, which seems to stare inquisitively back at me. As for Yan, in addition to his urinating puppet, a humorous wink at the most famous of Belgians; Manneken Pis, he has also managed to make a tiny horse made of metal, which gently rocks back and forth when poked. Irene, from the newly joined Bologna branch of the puppet family tree, has made a giant and elegant puppet wearing a tailor-made suit, complete with a small top hat, which she will use to approach and salute the public. Furthermore, all the puppets have one innovation in common. Their heads contain LED lights to brighten up the parade as it will promenade through the streets of East Belfast on what the weather forecast predicts will be a bitterly cold winter evening.

For my part, I am filled with wonderment at the creativity and skills of the Puppet Family. From very basic raw and reused materials, they have managed to create funny and funky creatures, which i have no doubt will entertain the crowds in an interactive game of look and see.

I leave the puppet makers for a while and join Sandra and Ricardo from the Compagnia dello Zucchero, based in Bologna, Italy. They are the video makers of the BelBoBru (BBB) project and are busy making an experimental video documentary called ‘Why, why, why not?’.

According to them, “Diversity and equality are the spirit of the three BelBoBru parades and the ‘leitmotif’ of our video project.”

“Different cultures, ethnic groups, social classes, ages and nationalities all work together and mix together throughout these parades. So the video camera will be there to observe and play with all that unfolds in front of its lens, in a kaleidoscope of colours, moods and friendships,” they write.

You can see some of their work here.

We hear a rumour that the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) is going to be at the old headquarters of the Beat Initiative to film a short piece on the drumming workshop and the volunteers from the Wandsworth Community Association youth group taking part in the parade. We rush to the scene in Matt’s van in search of the story. A drummer with the percussion group Beat ‘n’ Drum, Matt explains that although they play mostly Samba in his Belfast group, for the purposes of the BelBoBru project, they have built up a repertoire of mostly funk pieces with simple but effective grooves, which combine musical styles from as far afield as Brazil and North Africa.

We are the first to arrive and Damian has set out some of the distinctive bright green and red Boom Dang drums for tonight’s funky drummers. So you know, Boom Dang was first created by Therese Johnston and Dan Fox, who designed and manufactured the lightweight drums based on the Indian ‘Dhol’ drum, and gave it a western spin. The drums come in four sizes. They also have two skins. One skin is low, whilst the other high to give two sounds when played – a boom and a dang. Hence the onomatopoeic name; Boom Dang.

In this penultimate rehearsal before the big night, the excited young members of the Wandsworth Youth Group join their seasoned Beat ‘n’ Drum peers on the Boom Dang drums to create a truly loud, mind-blowing sound that reverberates round and around the Beat warehouse. It’s so loud in fact you can’t help but think people from the city centre will drop in just to find out what all the racket is about. But then that is the appeal of Boom Dang drumming. And by the end of this workshop, Sandra, Ricardo and I will have danced, nodded our heads and clapped our hands in time to the bold and funky rhythms of this most festive and carnival of music.

Beginning with an old favourite, ‘Funky Drummer’, and moving on to ‘Mangue Dang’, their own Brazilian Maracatu-inspired compositions, the group play simple and complex rhythm sequences with seamless transitions into different tempos and levels of intensity. At some points their performance is even visual as their routine includes sidestepping and jumps and pivots by the maestro himself; Damian. There are also accompanying high-hats and cymbals all specially adapted as attachments to the Boom Dang drums. And in a further funky twist. The Puppet Family have also created four special puppets incorporating cymbals, to head the merry band of funky drummers and lead the way of the Lantern Parade as it shines as a beacon of light in the cold, wintery night.

It’s day one and I go with the Brussels Puppet Family to the Beat Initiative’s new premises close to the famous Shankill Road. The Beat, whose aim is to create non-sectarian and inclusive public celebrations in Belfast, has recently moved from East Belfast to these new headquarters. Called the Belfast Carnival Arts Centre, the large space it now calls home is already filled with giant puppets and creatures; ranging from lions to swans, a chequered beetle and a praying mantis.

In one corner sits the head of Gulliver, which when assembled, will form the 5-metre high Gulliver character, who will be the centre piece of the Lantern Parade on Saturday. With Gulliver as the theme of this year’s nocturnal parade, Lilliputians and other creatures will have to be built.

With no time to waste, the Brussels Puppet Family, made up of Philippe, Isabelle and Yan, get straight to work on their puppets for the parade and the three workshops for kids they will hold on Tuesday, Wednesday and Thursday nights. The three beaver away at their creations, only taking time out to sip some hot coffee and share tips and jokes, and comment on the progress made. I find the atmosphere is at the same time jovial and hard working and I am eager to see their finished puppets.

Isabelle, for example, begins by working on a mini-puppet the kids will also make. Using three recycled spools of tape, she makes a ball, which she then covers with brown sticky tape, and then adds foam to make the nose, ears and eyes. Next up, she makes big steel-framed glasses and uses hemp to give her puppet eyebrows and hair. Finally, using cloth she makes the body and clothes of the puppet and a hand-glove to create a link between the puppeteer’s two hands, which in turn will allow her to breathe life and movement into her puppet when he is on a stage.

The first puppet-creation workshop for kids on Tuesday would follow the above scenario and prove to be a resounding success with the kids, their parents and the Brussels and Belfast Puppet Family. I find it impossible to stand aside and watch as a journalist might. I decide I just simply have to join in all the fun and end up helping the children glue the cloth to their puppets.

I will especially remember Joshua. A shy kid at first, he ends up creating one of the most simple and beautiful puppets in that group; Mr. Creepers. And when the children are asked if they want to bring their new puppets home with them tonight or pick them up on Saturday before the parade, loud screams of “YES! NOW!” come out of the little ones.

It was truly a night to remember!!!

Hello everyone.

My name is James and I have been hired by the Zinneke ASBL to follow the BelBoBru project for a year and report on its journey from conception to realisation, and culminating in the final public event due to take place in October 2009.

To remind you, the BelBoBru project is an urban parade laboratory with an international dimension as it brings together three partners from three cities in three European countries. These are the Beat Initiative (Belfast, Northern Ireland), Associazione Culturale Oltre (Bologna, Italy) and Zinneke ASBL (Brussels, Belgium).

The main idea behind the exchange project is very simple. Each one of the three cities chooses one artistic discipline and one local artist to represent it in one of three teams. So, Belfast has chosen drums, Bologna mime and Brussels has opted for giant puppets. Then, these three teams of artists will organise workshops in their respective discipline and city at the time of each parade. Namely, the Zinneke Parade in Brussels in May 2008, the Lantern Parade in December 2008 in Belfast and the Par Tot Parata in Bologna in June 2009. In between these events, the goal is for artists to work together to share knowledge, exchange competences, make new artistic creations and build a multidisciplinary performance for the final event.

According to Zinneke, “the three teams will then hit the streets together and analyse the interaction between artistic expression and social reality, between art and city. Every person’s skill (creatively as well as technically or intellectually) will be stimulated according to the sheer fun of creating. All these artists from Bologna, Brussels and Belfast will give shape to the vitality of the European identity and of a new common imaginative force.”

My first assignment is to report on the many workshops taking place in the run up to the nocturnal 2008 Lantern Parade, which will ‘dander’ through the streets of Belfast on Saturday 6 December. It is my first time in Northern Ireland and my first time working on such a project for Zinneke, so I am naturally very curious and excited about meeting the artists and participants and bringing you, the readers, news of this social, cultural and artistic adventure.

So stay tuned for more as over the next two weeks I will be bringing you the ‘sights, sounds and smells’ of the workshops taking place here in Belfast and the Lantern Parade itself…

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