2026 TCAF: THE WALTZ OF HOMMELETTES

★ Performed at London Barbican Centre in 2019

★ Vanguard of puppetry technology and cross-media experiment

★ Dark and yet enchanting characters from Grimms' Fairy Tales

In the heart of the Black Forest stands a giant cuckoo clock. “Tick-tock.” Like the natural rhythm in all fairy tales, time is supposed to go on precisely as usual until one day, the clock chimes the 13^th time that should not exist. At that extra moment, time temporarily loses its rhythm and as a group of enigmatic naughty elves secretly appear, the world order begins to crumble.

Inspired by The Elves by the Brothers Grimm, Waltz of the Hommelettes has a cuckoo clock as its whole stage while windows of different scenery are opened one after another. On one side, you see a shoemaker’s workshop running quietly, but the machines that faultlessly operate gradually lose control; on the other side, a maid cleans the house day after day and never expects she would one day become the elves’ godmother; while we turn to the corner in which a mother bird is building a nest, a rabbit, who has  horns on its head, is lurking surreptitiously in the dark, trying to catch the cuckoo.

The three chapters unfolding in the giant cuckoo clock preserve the dark, eccentric, and preposterous texture hidden in Brothers Grimm’s writing. Discarding the traditional linear narrative and through vivid puppets and interesting devices, they are woven into a fantasy world between dream and fairy tales. The clever stage design allows children to float in the sea of imagination and adults to regain the pure imagination they had before. Nonetheless, while the daily routines gradually go out of order, it makes people begin to wonder what the elves are doing in that extra time? Is the maid’s transformation accidental or pre-arranged? And how about that strange rabbit? What on earth is it harboring?

Produced by Les Antliaclastes known for their unique visual narrative style developed with puppetry and mechanical devices, Waltz of the Hommelettes is performed with almost no dialogue, opening a door to viewing and imagination. In this summer, let’s enter the giant cuckoo clock in Waltz of the Hommelettes together and follow the 13^th strike to embark on a fairy tale journey with distorted fantasy, misplaced time, and lost logic!

Les Antliaclastes

Founded in 2010, Les Antliaclastes is a contemporary French puppetry and object theatre company that combines various forms of puppetry with mechanical devices and designs the stage structure and masks of their own. Their productions are known for their precision structure and visual narrative. Specialized in overlapping fairy tales, dreams, and reality, the company creates a theatre that can be not only seen but felt.