Perth International Arts Festival’s opening event in 2015 was The Incredible and Phenomenal Journey of The Giants to the Streets of Perth, a three-day outdoor performance by French company Royal de Luxe. The festival announced separate city routes for the Little Girl Giant and the Diver on 13 and 14 February, followed by an Anzac-themed farewell on 15 February. The itinerary below is the announced schedule; available accounts do not establish a verified record of the route as performed.
When The Giants opened PIAF
The festival announced the event for Friday 13 to Sunday 15 February 2015 as part of Perth International Arts Festival’s opening weekend. Royal de Luxe created the production, with artistic director Jean-Luc Courcoult writing its poetic narrative. The festival described it as a commemoration of the Anzac centenary.
The two central figures were the Little Girl Giant and the Diver. The festival announcement listed them at six metres and eleven metres tall, respectively. A contemporary PerthNow report gave the Little Girl a different height of nine metres; the festival’s figures are used here as the official event announcement’s specifications.
What routes were announced for each day?
The schedule below records the journeys and approximate times announced ahead of the event, rather than confirming what happened on the streets.
| Date | Announced route and schedule |
|---|---|
| Friday, 13 February |
The Little Girl Giant was due to wake at Langley Park at 9:30am, then travel via Terrace Road, Plain Street, Riverside Drive and Barrack Street to Wellington Square, where she was expected to rest around 12:30pm. She was scheduled to set off again at 4pm and return to Langley Park at about 7pm. |
| Saturday, 14 February |
The Diver: Wake at Perth Train Station at 10:30am; travel along Wellington Street and Barrack Street to Wellington Square; rest; then continue via Hill, Goderich and Bennett streets, Terrace Road, Plain Street and Riverside Drive to Langley Park. The Little Girl Giant: Wake at Langley Park at 9:30am; travel via Hill, Hay and Beaufort streets to Weld Square; rest; then continue via Beaufort and Francis streets, the cultural centre, Wellington and Barrack streets, St Georges Terrace, Adelaide Terrace and Terrace Road back to Langley Park, where the two figures were due to meet. |
| Sunday, 15 February |
The Giants were scheduled to pay tribute to the Anzac spirit from 10am to 1pm before leaving Perth on the Swan River. The announcement did not specify a street route for this final day. What’s actually slowing this PC down? Pick the symptom - the matching free tool is one click away. Special offer. See more information about Outbyte and uninstall instructions. Please review EULA and Privacy policy.
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How the Little Girl Giant and Diver fit the story
In Courcoult’s poetic narrative, the Little Girl Giant falls from the sky into the desert and is cared for by Noongar people. She receives a storybook whose images tell of a girl in a lighthouse watching troops sail to war and of Gallipoli. The Diver is an Australian sent to recover soldiers from the sea near Gallipoli; he eventually becomes a giant. When the Little Girl sees the book, she travels toward Perth and calls the Diver home.
The story’s Noongar setting and its Gallipoli imagery are elements of the production’s artistic framing. They should not be read as a factual account of Noongar history or of the Gallipoli campaign. Contemporary PerthNow coverage reported that Courcoult met children’s author Dianne Wolfer and that she shared the story of her book Lighthouse Girl during his research. That connection provides context, but does not establish the production as an official adaptation of the book.
Courcoult described the narrative as a sequence of impressions rather than a strictly chronological account: “The story is before all a mix of human impression where chronology is irrelevant.” He was speaking through a French translator.
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The festival’s official announcement gave the Little Girl Giant’s height as six metres and the Diver’s as eleven metres. ABC’s contemporary report also gave those measurements and described the figures moving with cranes and human operators. PerthNow’s report listed the Little Girl as nine metres tall, so accounts differed on her height.
The festival anticipated around one million live viewers across the three days. That was an advance estimate by Perth International Arts Festival and the University of Western Australia, not a confirmed final attendance count. The large figures, moving through public streets and culminating in a Swan River departure, made the event a city-scale opening spectacle as well as a theatrical story.
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