It is with great pleasure that we announce Ukwanda Puppets and Design Arts Collective member, Luyanda Nogodlwane’s, award for Best Puppetry Design at the 59th Fleur du Cap Theatre Awards.

This production premieres at the Star Theatre at the District Six Homecoming Centre (formerly the Fugard Theatre) on the 7th February until the 11th February 2023.

Rehearsals are full steam ahead in Barrydale for the 2022 Puppet Performance and Parade created and produced by members of the CHR and aesthetic education partner, Net vir Pret.

The CHR’s Ukwanda Puppetry Collectivein collaboration with the Staatstheater Augsburg bring “Isingqala Samanzi/The Call of Water” to the Baxter Flipside Theatre from 22 to 24 September 2022 at 20:00 nightly with a Saturday matinee.

The CHR is delighted to announce artists in residence, Ukwanda Puppets Collective’s collaborative puppetry performance, will be performing at at the Augsburg Staatstheater in Germany this July.

After the great success of the elephant puppet walk at the Boschendal Plum Harvest Festival in 2021, we will be celebrating this year’s festival with giant puppets to raise awareness of the living waters and aquatic life of our planet.  

CHR Artist in Residence Buhle Ngaba is writing a screenplay for a groundbreaking puppetry production on the life of Charlotte Maxeke.

The Documentary Film Project at the CHR is key to rethinking the humanities PhD, incorporating audio-visual content into a reimagining of an aesthetic education.

The 2021 Barrydale Puppet Parade and Performance centres on a family living in Barrydale and the connection a young woman has with an ancient indigenous tree, Old Gwarrie, as well as with the wonderful world she calls home.

“When Nights are Dark” is part of The Walk – a travelling festival of art and hope in support of refugees, with Artistic Direction from Amir Nizar Zuabi and presented by the Jungle, Good Chance, in collaboration with Handspring Puppet Company.

With 2021 being declared “The Year of Charlotte Maxeke,” the DSI-NRF Flagship on Critical thought in the African Humanities at the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape, has embarked on a special production based on the life of Maxeke.

With construction underway on Greatmore, a sod-turning ceremony was held to celebrate the coming to fruition of the proposal for an arts and humanities hub supported through the DSI-NRF Flagship and the NIHSS.

The CHR is delighted to celebrate and support the journey of young refugee and 3.5-meter puppet Little Amal as she walks 8000 km from Turkey to Manchester, UK.

Life-sized elephant puppet Mnumzane strolled across the Boschendal Estate on Sunday 14 March 2021, accompanied by little elephant Alfie, their path criss-crossed by the boisterous Dassie puppet.

Inviting Artists and Scholars to Reimagine the Future of the Humanities Beyond the Divided City.

Statement from the University of the Western Cape Vice-Chancellor and Rector, Professor Tyrone Pretorius, on the Tenth Anniversary of the Barrydale Reconciliation Day Festival.

The Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape (CHR), in partnership with Net vir Pret are celebrating 10 years of puppetry in Barrydale. Reboot Eden will be an online program of four new puppet performances that will be available online from the 16th -19th December 2020.

For the past ten years the Centre for Humanities Research’s Laboratory of Kinetic Objects has been engaged in a mutual education and arts initiative (along with partners Net Vir Pret, Handspring Puppet Company, uKwanda Puppetry and Design Collective, and Magpie Collective) in the village of Barrydale some three hours outside of Cape Town. Given the COVID-19 pandemic, this years Barrydale parade is set to convene remotely.

As South Africa celebrated Heritage Day this year, Boschendal Estate in Franschhoek provided an ideal backdrop for the first steps of Little Amal, a three-metre puppet created by the Handspring Puppet Company from South Africa to represent the plight of a refugee child.

The New Normal Life is a film with puppetry about the pandemic, written, directed, performed, filmed and edited by the Ukwanda Puppetry and Design Collective

CHR Artists in Residence, Ukwanda Puppetry and Art Collective will take part in the premier tonight of their collaborative project with Pop Art, Fak’ugezi and the National Arts Festival at 6pm titled The Lonely Sailor Weather Report.

The Centre for Humanities Research and partners Net vir Pret present the ninth annual Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade and Performance.

Between July 6th and July 10th 2019, the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects (LoKO) at the CHR hosted a colloquium on Subject/Object relations, in an ongoing exploration of Animation, Animism, Thing Theory, the Subject and the Object, Puppetry Arts and performance.

The CHR production of Warona performed by Ukwanda Puppetry and Design Collective has been voted the 2019 Standard Bank Ovation Award at the Makhanda Arts Festival.

Presented by: Ukwanda Puppets and Designs Company

New Performance by Ukwanda Puppetry Collective

The CHR's artists in residence, the uKwanda puppetry group, is in rehearsal, working with director Thando Doni (who is currently in performance in the acclaimed play […]

Ukwanda Puppets & Designs Art Collective was developed through the mentorship of Handspring Puppet Company.

The Factory of the Arts of the Centre for Humanities Research, University of the Western Cape invites to you a tribute to artists Ncedile Daki and Mlu

The 2016 Barrydale Puppet Parade and Performance brings you Olifantland, a multilingual visual theatre show featuring five majestic life size elephant puppets by Adrian Kohler from Handspring Puppet Company in collaboration with UKWANDA Puppet and Design Collective.

Arts Education Workshops in Puppetry, Performance and Visual Arts Arts Education workshops were conducted with 20 Grade 10 learners from Chris Hani and Luhlaza Secondary […]