The CHR and Boschendal’s collaboration in arts education forms part of a wider UWC and Boschendal partnership. This is the fourth year of workshops and collaboration between the CHR’s puppetry programs and Boschendal Education, connecting learners from the rural areas of Dwarsrivier valley to the rich world of kinetic objects and puppetry unfolding at UWC. The walk features giant puppets created by the CHR’s award-winning Artists in Residence Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Art Collective, performed by puppeteers from Net vir Pret in Barrydale.
The three giant puppets for this year’s performance were originally created for Moving Mountains, the 2023 Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade and Performance (created in partnership between Net Vir Pret, The Ukwanda Puppet Company and the CHR), which retold the stories of the legendary Koos Sas, a local folk hero from the early 1900’s in the Klein Karoo areas of Montague and Barrydale.
The Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade and Performance in the Klein Karoo celebrates a 15 year-long partnership between the CHR, the Handspring Puppet Trust, and Net vir Pret. The parade draws puppeteers, musicians, performers, and publics both local and international to work with local youths to celebrate and explore powerful issues of community, conservation, ecology, and culture through the art of puppetry.
This year’s walk at Boschendal farm was preceded by a two-day puppetry making workshop with children from Lanquedoc and Pniel (facilitated by Herman Witbooi and Clarisa Jonas of Net vir Pret), and a workshop at the CHR’s Iyatsiba Lab in Woodstock with Grade 7 learners from Nondzame Primary and Pniel Primary in Lanquedoc.