Puppet Parade in Barrydale to raise water awareness

THIS

year’s

annual

in the quirky Klein Karoo town of Barrydale celebrates and reclaims the power, mythologies and awareness of the local Klein Huis Rivier that runs through the Tradouw Valley.

The river holds great significance to the people and animals of this scenic, fertile part of the Langeberg.

Awareness of scarce water resources has been heightened in the province as it still grapples with the effects of the severe drought. The parade, held over the weekend of December 6, also raises the plight of the endangered Redfin Minnow, a unique fish found only in the Barrydale region.

The Andrew W Mellon Chair of Aesthetic Theory and Material Performance at UWC’s Centre for Humanities Research (CHR), Professor Jane Taylor, said: “It is well known how wasteful and irrational planning and economic practices of the apartheid state had a profound impact on the communities compelled to live in divided racially-defined spaces.

“What is increasingly evident is the environmental impact of these policies.”

Raising awareness about the way water has been used and abused in dividing and separating the community and people itself, the production asks the public to reconsider our own relationships to water, come together to save the Redfin Minnow and celebrate the streams and rivers that connect them.

This landmark public performance event forms part of the Barrydale Arts Meander (BAM) and is organised by the award-winning Magpie Arts Collective.

On offer is a feast of creativity in which all the galleries and artists in the creative town on the R62 will open their doors to the public throughout the weekend.

Every year the parade draws local and international puppeteers, musicians and performers who work with local youth to celebrate and explore powerful, relevant issues of community, conservation, ecology and culture through the art of puppetry.

The team of puppeteers from uKwanda Design and Puppetry Collective in Cape Town, who made the finely crafted lifesize rhinos of 2017, will be creating new giant puppets for this free live event.

The new puppets will be used in performances with hundreds of creations by local puppeteers Clarisa Jonas and Herman Witbooi, as well as by local school pupils through the creative programmes of

The musical performance, created through a year-long process of workshops with international musicians and theatre makers, will be directed by Cape Town puppetry artist and post-doctoral fellow, Aja Marneweck, who is based at the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects.

The parade is hosted in partnership with the Laboratory of Kinetic Objects (LoKO) led by CHR’s Professor Taylor.