Abstract:

In Xanadu is an epic love story about Kubilai Kahn and his wife Chabui. They are inseparable partners. When she dies he attempts to bring her back from the underworld.

Winner of puppetry's highest award, the UNIMA-USA Citation for Excellence, the piece blends Tibetan, Chinese and Indonesian ideas into a unique form of theater which recalls the film language of Bergman and Kurosawa with lap dissolves, live montage and the controlled chaos of war.

In Xanadu was featured in the 1993 National Puppetry Festival in San Francisco, the 1994 Henson International Puppetry Festival, at the Public Theater in New York, and in 1997 at the Spoleto/USA Festival in Charleston SC. The original score by Miguel Frasconi includes traditional Tibetan and Mongolian music by Tashi Dhondup, Tsering Wangmo and Chen Shi-Zheng.

Extras on the DVD include "The Making of In Xanadu" with interviews with the director shadow casters and musicians, covering the development of the story, back stage magic, and a slide show of the puppets and masks.