Hyottoko’s Journey by Francois Danis

Francois Danis is a big paddle fan and over the years has created some real beauties. His latest offering, Hyottoko’s Journey, is probably his most ambitious, beautiful, and amazing yet.

Like all great men Francois has also taken advantage of his wife’s (Pascaline) talents by protecting the paddles in a beautiful, embroidered case, hand-crafted by Pascaline. It really complements the paddles perfectly and I hope to see more of Pascaline’s talents on display in future projects from Francois 🙂  In fact, I’m ordering some of Pascaline’s beautiful handmade stitched gifts from her store right now!

For the story teller what is really neat about this set is that instead of being a collection of three separate paddles Francois has created a routine that brings together all of the paddles flowing from one to the next.

You receive:

• A paddle with three fans.
• A paddle with a sleeve and paper lanterns.
• A mechanical paddle with Noh’s masks.
• A small display stand with Hyottoko’s face.
• A unique embroidered case to store them all.

There are three sections to the included patter:

• The Fans Paddle – a five phase routine
• The Paper Lantern’s Paddle – a three phase routine
• The Noh Masks Paddle – a three phase routine

These are all brought together in an adorable story called The Concubine Story, and what is neat is the embroidered case is featured throughout the story as you remove and replace the paddles from the case.  You set everything up in the case before you start and you are off to the races.  What a great idea that makes it easy to manage the paddles and also gives the audience something pretty to focus on too 🙂

Effect: You will receive three paddles and a small display stand with Hyottoko’s face. All the props are contained in a beautiful linen and Japanese fabric case, with Haiku pattern, embroidered with silk. This case is handmade. Of course, the set comes with a booklet that contains the instructions for each paddle and a story: Hyottoko’s journey that links the three effects one to each other.

Instead of proposing three paddle effects to perform one by one, unrelated to each other, Francois wove them together into a single story. A story that will lead your audience in the footsteps of Hyottoko, a classic character from the Noh Theatre of Japan. Hyottoko is a clown. He is not only a clown, but he also has a strong passion for drinks and food. Francois has taken this funny character as the main one, when he created this paddle set, and the story that comes with it. 

You can use the provided story, with the routines. But nothing prevents you from creating your own patter and adding your personal touch. Because magic is at first and foremost a matter of imagination and the transmission of beautiful stories. So now, you are the magic.

This apparatus is handcrafted,each set is numbered and signed and comes with fully detailed instructions.

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