The Art of Babar, the Work of the Words by Watching the Characters’ Actions? Jean and Laurent De Brunhoff

THEATREMUSIC TRADITIONAL ARTISTIC PERCEPTION (AP) ® CLASSICAL CREATIVE EXPRESSION (CE) Artsource CONTEMPORARY HISTORICAL & CULTURAL CONTEXT (H/C) The Music Center’s Study Guide to the Performing Arts EXPERIMENTAL AESTHETIC VALUING (AV) MULTI-MEDIA CONNECT, RELATE & APPLY (CRA) ENDURING FREEDOM & THE POWER THE HUMAN TRANSFORMATION VALUES OPPRESSION OF NATURE FAMILY Title of Work: introduces him to the life of a sophisticated Parisian. Babar The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant assimilates French culture and style, learns to speak the language, buys a fashionable suit and acquires a passion for Creators: French pastries. When he returns to his jungle home, Producer: The Children’s Theatre Company Artistic Director, 1984-1997: Jon Cranney Babar is crowned the new elephant King and with his Queen Celeste, the story closes with a promise of future Background Information: adventures and travels. A man of international repute, Jon Cranney was the Artistic Director of The Children’s Theatre Company (CTC) in Creative Process of the Artist or Culture: Minneapolis, Minnesota from 1984 - 1997. He credits his The biggest challenge in bringing a book off the page and education in the professional theatre to a 13-year tenure at onto the stage lies in expanding two-dimensional artwork to Minneapolis’s acclaimed repertory stage, The Guthrie Theater. three. In this story it was of primary importance to create There he served in a number of capacities, including actor, an accurate scale of the elephant characters to the human director, stage manager and artistic administrator, under the ones. The book’s illustrations served as blueprints to leadership of such eminent directors and teachers as Michael establish the physical relationships. The costumes for Babar Langham and founder Tyrone Guthrie. Accustomed to and his elephant friends needed to look exactly like the working with the classic texts of Sophocles, Shakespeare and characters in the book and allow the characters to come Molière, at the CTC, Mr. Cranney presented a repertoire of alive and dance with flexibility! Because the costumes were classics in children’s literature, such as Little Women, Madeline’s almost impossible to see out of, ‘animal handlers’ guided Rescue and The Hobbit. He was at the forefront in the actors on and off the stage. While on stage, the actors establishing The CTC’s tradition of taking a book’s in the elephant ‘skins’ knew where to go only by following a illustrations, page by page, and adapting them with magical carefully drawn pattern on the floor. The play’s creative precision to the stage. Mr. Cranney has led exchanges with the team left nothing to chance, largest children’s theatres in the former Soviet Union and China, inventing action for the scenes directing respectively, The Adventures of Tom Sawyer, 1989, in the story and carefully chore- and The 500 Hats of Bartholomew Cubbins, 1991. ographing every movement and stage picture to create a larger- About the Artwork: than-life illusion of the beloved he Story of Babar, the Little Elephant is the first book in the T French classic. series by French author/illustrator Jean de Brunhoff. As the story unfolds, Babar is fleeing from the jungle to escape the What The Children’s Theatre Company does is allow children to hunter who killed his mother. Young Babar arrives in Paris as grow and learn and feel - to go on a stranger and is befriended by a rich old lady who journeys to strange and exotic and even familiar places, and experience those worlds through the Minnesota medium of art.” Jon Cranney Discussion Questions: Additional References: After the video has been viewed: • de Brunhoff, Jean. The Story of Babar the Little • What language, other than English, do the Elephant. Random House Inc., New York, NY: 1937. characters speak in the play? Can you understand • Weber, Nicholas Fox .The Art of Babar, The Work of the words by watching the characters’ actions? Jean and Laurent de Brunhoff. Harry N. Abrams, New • Describe Babar’s voice. What musical instrument is York, NY: 1989. used for the sounds he makes? Sample Experiences: • Does the department store’s staff think it strange LEVEL I to have an elephant shopping for a suit of clothes? • Read other books in the Babar series such as Travels of • How do they treat Babar? Babar and Babar the King. • What things in the play did you find funny? • Discuss the death of Babar’s mother which may be • What things did you find surprising? frightening to younger children. Talk about how despite • Does the department store remind you of a his sadness, Babar is able to survive and find others who contemporary clothing store? Why or why not? love him and whom he grows to love. • What does it mean to be ‘civilized’? Is Babar • On a map, trace Babar’s journey from North Africa to civilized? Paris, France. • After Babar has been dressed in his new green * • Explore ways that one art form can inspire the creation suit, does he look like the character from the of new works in other art forms. Babar books? LEVEL II Multidisciplinary Options: • Experiment with fabric remnants and fake fur to make • Elephants are a strange and interesting order of puppets of the Babar characters and present a puppet mammals called the Proboscidea. The name refers to a play of a Babar book. proboscis, or long tube-like appendage known as a • Research the history, culture, climate, agriculture, trunk. Have students research the elephant, the architecture, recreation, etc., of Babar’s adopted home, biggest land animal today, suggesting topics such Paris, France. as: the elephant’s tusks, teeth, and diet; the * • Create characters based on animal studies, transforming structure of an elephant’s trunk and the many key animal traits into human characteristics. things for which it is used; the two different native LEVEL III elephants, Indian and African; Stone-Age relatives, • Select a picture book and have the class improvise the woolly mammoth and the mastodon, and a action and scenes suggested by the book’s illustrations. rather small mammal related to the elephant, the • Analyze the cast of characters in the Babar books. hydrax. Make a list of their names and write three adjectives Audio-Visual Materials: which describe the personality and/or physicality of each. • Artsource® video excerpt: The Story of Babar, the * • Study the Babar books from a visual arts perspective, Little Elephant, courtesy of The Children’s Theatre referring to The Art of Babar, The Work of Jean and Company. Laurent de Brunhoff by Nicholas Fox Weber. • Photos: courtesy of The Children’s Theatre Company. • Book illustrations from The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant by Jean de Brunhoff © 1933, Random House, Inc. Illustrations used with permission from current book rights holder, Hachette Livre (Paris). * Indicates sample lessons 2 THEATRE ARTISTIC INSPIRATIONS TRANSFORMATION LEVEL I Sample Lesson INTRODUCTION: The text and illustrations of the classic French children’s book, The Story of Babar, the Little Elephant, inspired The Children’s Theatre Company to create a play with the same title. Through this process, something literary became something theatrical. All forms of artistic expression can be points of departure for new creations in other art forms. This sample lesson will explore some of those possibilities. OBJECTIVES: (Student Outcomes) Students will be able to: • Use music, visual arts, stories and poems as sources of inspiration for expression in new art forms. (Creative Expression) • Describe, discuss, analyze and connect information and experiences based on this lesson. Refer to Assessment at the end of this lesson. (Aesthetic Valuing) MATERIALS: • Several musical selections, large fine art prints and selected All book illustrations throughout unit used stories or poems. Pens, pencils, crayons, markers and paper. with permission of Hachette Livre PROGRESSION: (These are suggestions for many different lessons.) Use the following exercises to stir the artistic imaginations of your students. Encourage them to make bold choices as they write, compose, draw or dance from one form to another. • Music: Play a piece of music for the class, allowing them to listen quietly with their eyes closed. After it has played through once, play it again, but this time ask them to write or draw to the music. Suggest that they write a story for the music, creating characters, a plot and a setting. Or, suggest that they translate the music into something visual, a drawing, a painting or a collage. • Visual Art: Position a large art reproduction on the classroom blackboard. Give the class some quiet time to study the artwork. What seems to be happening in the picture? What mood does it evoke? Next, use the artwork to inspire playwriting or poetry. If the painting could come to life, what would the people in it be doing or saying? Make those people characters in a play and write the first scene. If the painting is an abstract or is a realistic landscape, challenge the students to think of the painting as a setting and write a scene that could only happen there. The students could also write a poem responding to the style or mood of the painting or sculpture. 3 • Stories and Poems: Read a favorite story or poem to the class and discuss the plot and main characters so that everyone has a good grasp of the events. Next, ask the class to choreograph the story as an interpretive dance. Cast the parts, allowing the students to interpret the characters’ motivations and emotions through movement. Compose a rhythmic score to the story with homemade percussion instruments and perform the dance with musical accompaniment. EXTENSION: • Select one children’s book and express it in as many art forms as possible.

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