The Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade: mobilising creative ecologies in the Klein Karoo, South Africa
The CHR congratulates postdoctoral fellow in the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects Aja Marneweck on the publication of ‘The Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade: mobilising creative ecologies in the Klein Karoo, South Africa’ in Research in Drama Education: The Journal of Applied Theatre and Performance. The abstract reads:
The article explores the multifaceted process of creating the large-scale annual public puppetry event, The Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade, in the rural town of Barrydale, South Africa. It unpacks the complex layers of meaning and making arising through a co-creative puppetry project in a region of South Africa marked by poverty and the on-going everyday legacies of racial injustice and socio-economic disparity. It considers how developing puppetry arts within the Barrydale community has instigated a crucial mobilisation of individuals and the collective, as well as a trans-embodied praxis for generating new ecologies of self and community in the small town.
Marneweck has played a critical role as project director in the production of the past annual puppetry events in Barrydale in partnership with Net vir Pret, including this year’s parade titled The Final Spring.