MAXEKE: "This work is not for yourselves"What started as a small youth development project in the impoverished Masiphumelele community near Noordhoek has grown to be a force to be reckoned with on a global stage, participating in international productions that seek to fight universal challenges.
Based at the University of the Western Cape's (UWC) Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) Iyatsiba Lab in Woodstock, Ukwanda won its latest commission earlier this year: to create prototypes for 600 life-size animal puppets that will migrate from Kinshasa in the Democratic Republic of the Congo to the Arctic Circle to draw attention to the climate crisis.
The puppets will depict a herd of animals forced out of their natural habitats due to global warming, from where they will traverse cities and urban environments en route to Norway, interacting with the people all along.
Along the route, animals indigenous to the countries the animal puppets are travelling through will join the group.
The Herds, as this large scale public arts production is called, will see the herd of puppets, constructed in recycled materials like metal and cardboard, set off on the 20,000 km route from the Congo Basin in April 2025.
They are expected to travel across Africa and Europe to Svalbard, Norway, in the Arctic Circle.
Who is Ukwanda?
Ukwanda Puppetry is a resident arts company at the CHR's Iyatsiba Lab and is run by Luyanda Nogodlwana, Sipho Gxola, and Siphokazi Mpofu.
The fourth member Ncedile Daki sadly passed away in 2017. The company started as Masiphumelele Youth Development, working with children and performing music, dance and puppetry for tourists during the 2010 FIFA World Cup.
Their impressive work led to them being introduced to the renowned Handspring Puppet Company to be apprentices, learning the puppetry arts from Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones.
The CHR, under former Director Professor Premesh Lalu, was invited by Handspring to join the Handspring Spring Puppet Trust, which had a new arts project in the rural town of Barrydale with Net for Pret, a community-based organisation for arts education that CHR and Ukwanda have partnered with since 2010 to create an annual giant puppet parade on 16 December.
When Handspring decided to step down from the annual event in Barrydale, the Ukwanda company was formed and continued with the project with the support of the CHR and artistic and technical support from Handspring.
"They (Handspring) were building horse puppets and were about to stop their work there when we decided to open our own puppet company because we were going to run out of work," Gxola said.
Since then, Ukwanda has been working with the CHR and Net for Pret in Barrydale every year on this giant puppet parade, even during the COVID-19 pandemic, making a huge impact in the community.
According to CHR Director, Prof Heidi Grunebaum, Nasima Badsha did a case study last year that was published in a book called Creative Pathways into Higher Education.
The study shows that from 1994 until 2011, not one child in Barrydale who finished high school went into higher education. "They were going to work on the farms. Since the start of this collaboration, more than 80 young people have gone from high school to tertiary education."
While performing in Barrydale, Ukwanda caught the attention of an international audience.
This led to an invitation to create the prototypes for The Herds, directed by Nizar Zoabi.
Zoabi, now based in London, had commissioned Handspring to create little Amal, a four-meter giant refugee puppet, who walked from the border of Syria and Turkey following the trails of refugees and migrants through the Mediterranean countries, stopping in Rome to shake hands with the pope, into Western Europe and then Britain, and later through North America to the US-Mexico border.
The Walk with Little Amal was a large scale international public art project raising awareness about the predicaments of refugees across the planet.
Nizar Zoabi, who attended the 2023 giant puppet parade and performance in Barrydale, was so impressed by Ukwanda that he commissioned them to design and create the prototypes for The Herds, a commission that has seen Ukwanda employ four additional puppet makers for the duration of the project.
Over the years, Ukwanda has been designing, building and performing puppets worldwide, winning numerous accolades, including at the national arts festival.
In 2024, they won a Fleur du Cap for best puppetry design, with Luyanda Nogodlwana as lead designer, for the production, MAXEKE: This Work is not for Ourselves. Mpofu credits the partnership with UWC and Handspring for their success.
Nogodlwana echoed her sentiments: "We are artists, and we know the struggle for artists out there. But we are the three lucky artists because artists are often freelancers, but before our workshop in Iyatsiba Lab the CHR offered us fellowships as artists in residence."
"I never knew I would be sitting here today doing this kind of work," Mpofu noted.
"Everyone knows us because of the university and Handspring's support, especially in South Africa, where the puppetry industry is not big."
She said the most important thing about working with the CHR is that it allows them space to conduct research when building puppets.
"I remember when we were doing The Elephants when the CHR made sure we went to Addo Elephant Park to spend time with the animals and learn everything the elephants are doing before we did the design and rehearsals in the workshop. Doing research allows us to understand the animals, so when I'm performing that puppet, I can do exactly what that animal is doing."
The CHR understands the puppet philosophically.
As Prof Grunebaum explained, “The puppet can teach us, from the way that it comes alive, to the way that it establishes relationships between those who manipulate it and those who see it. The puppet is a metaphor for the humanities connecting the head and the hand or thinking and making, which opens another way to think about the work of transforming our society."
She added that UWC's partnership with Ukwanda is visionary and based on mutual respect.
"It's a partnership of respect, mutual dignity, understanding and commitment to a collective and collaborative vision; we are all in this together even though we do very different work as scholars and makers".
Meanwhile, in November, the CHR will host the first International Union of Puppets conference in South Africa at the Iyatsiba Lab, which will emphasise puppetry arts in Africa.
