40th Anniversary of the Handspring Puppet Company

Feb 5, 2021

Friday February 5th marks the 40th anniversary for the Handspring Puppet Company, collaborators in the aesthetic endeavours of the CHR, most particularly as creative mentors to the Ukwanda Puppetry and Design Collective, as well as the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects (LoKO).

For the past ten years Handspring have been engaged with the CHR in the significant project in arts, puppetry and performance in the rural village of Barrydale. Their first collaboration with Professor Jane Taylor, A.W. Mellon Chair in Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance at the CHR was the production of Ubu and the Truth Commission, in 1996.

In their extraordinary career, they have won many distinctions for their artistry; and are perhaps most celebrated for their work designing and engineering the astonishing life-sized horse puppets for War Horse, an anti-war exploration, that also considers inter-species relationships. That production went on to become the most successful play in the history of the National Theatre, UK (who commissioned the work) and won an Olivier Award, the London Critics’ Circle Award, and the highly esteemed TONY AWARD, in addition to being performed in dozens of countries on most of the continents of the world. They are currently working together with Goodchance on a puppetry project on the predicament of refugees with a giant girl-child puppet, Little Amal who will make her way from the Syrian-Turkish border to Manchester, UK.

Handspring has been exemplary in its commitment to working across the continent from Mali to Botswana and across Southern Africa, and globally, and for this outstanding citizenship, as well as their artistry, they won the John F Kennedy Gold Medal For the Arts.

Handspring pioneered a ground-breaking performance aesthetic, leading an experiment in puppetry for adults, taking on themes around social justice, sexuality, colonialism, militarism and inter-species communication.

Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones have been outspoken advocates of LGBTQI rights and their marriage was a celebration of legal transformation in South Africa. Friday 5^th February marks the 14^th Wedding Anniversary of the two pioneering artists, Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones, who are at the helm of the company.

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Handspring Puppet company in the news

Isikhalo Somlambo/Der Ruf des Wassers

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.

Taking The Walk

The CHR is pleased to announce the honouring of the achievements of Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, founders of Handspring Puppet Company, who will receive honorary doctorates from the University of Toronto, the Jackman Humanities Institute, in June 2022.

Spotlight on Documentary

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.

Walking with Amal: When Nights are Dark

“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.

Breaking Ground at Greatmore

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.

Friends of Little Amal

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.

The Way to Greatmore

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

From the Office of the Vice-Chancellor: Statement on the Barrydale Reconciliation Day Festival

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.

Reboot Eden: Celebrating Ten Years of Puppetry in Barrydale

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.

Reboot Eden: The Art of Recovery

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.

RIVER AND REDFIN

The CHR and Net Vir Pret Annual Giant Puppet Parade and Performance, Barrydale, 16 December 2018

Olifantland – Trailer

A Film by Stanley John The 2016 Barrydale Puppet Parade and Performance, called Olifantland, a multilingual visual theatre show featuring five majestic life size elephant […]