Cupertino DailyDino-Mite Show for the Family by Theresa Condon
Most young children go through a
dinosaur-loving phase at one time or another. Whether they prefer learning
about the ferocious raptors of the Jurassic period or singing along with Barney
the Purple Dinosaur, these ancient creatures have become common characters in a
child’s world.
If you want to take your child’s
experience one step further than the pages of a book or a television screen,
what could be better than a show with life-size animated dinosaur robots?
Enter
Walking with Dinosaurs: Live Experience, a family friendly show presented
by the Creature Production Company that uses advanced robotics technology to
bring the prehistoric past to “life”.
I attended a recent show at San Jose’s HP
Pavilion and, although I have long since passed out of my dinosaur-loving
phase, I was thoroughly impressed and clapped enthusiastically along with the
grade-schoolers around me when it was finished.
Our journey through the Time of the
Dinosaurs was guided by a narrator in safari clothes who circled the stage
explaining the actions of the gigantic prehistoric beasts roaming around him.
Smoke and flashing lights filled the arena as shifting landmasses on stage
evolved with the times, changing from barren rock to lush forests through the
Jurassic and Cretaceous periods. Watching an Anklosauraus, with its clubbed
tail and bony body, defend itself from the attacks of a Tyrannosaurus Rex or an
Ornithocheirus swooping across the stage is pretty impressive no matter what
age you are.
During the hour and a half show, the
narrator led us through 170 million years of dinosaur history. Life for these
fantastic creatures came to an end when a huge comet crashed in the Gulf of
Mexico and filled with air with poisonous dust and gases which eventually
killed off the dinosaurs and made way for a second wave of life on Earth.
The general consensus from the kids
around me was that, although the Tyrannosaurus Rex was scary, the show was
awesome. Screens on either side of the stage showed us a close up of the
incredible detail on these machines, right down to the wrinkles on the
Brachiosaurus’ blowholes. I thought that the amount of scientific material was
well suited to a younger audience, not overwhelming but certainly informative.
The realistic sound and appearance of the robots might frighten very young
children, so families with really little ones should not sit too near the
stage.
Tags: dinosaurs, Events
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