The winners of the first Handspring Awards for Puppetry were announced at Out the Box Festival of Puppetry and Visual Theatre’s closing ceremony on Sunday 28th March, held at the Little Theatre, UCT’s Hiddingh Campus.
The awards were presented by Basil Jones and Adrian Kohler, founders of the Handspring Puppet Company. Speaking from the Baxter Theatre stage at the festival opening, Jones said that in recent years, puppetry had grown in local theatre and so had a “greater understanding of the nature of the puppet theatre”. “We are in possession of a clearer set of analytical tools when we come to ‘critiquing’ new works in the theatre,” he continued. Kohler added that this is not shared by everyone. “All too often”, he says, “when one reads a review of a new puppet piece, it begins with the words: ‘If you thought puppets were only for children…’ which unfortunately sets the discourse at a pretty basic level. Public debate about what puppets offer to the theatre is thin. The often asked question ‘Why puppets?’ needs vigorous and thoughtful answers. We seldom get them. What for instance is the difference between a human actor on the stage and a puppet of a human? We believe there is a very significant difference, which is connected to the fact that only the puppet has to fight and struggle to live, whereas an actor can take this struggle for granted.”
Jones and Kohler founded the Handspring Puppet Company in 1981 and have travelled the world with their magical stories. They are the brilliant creators behind the puppets used in several productions in this country such as Tall Horse and Woyzeck on the Highveld. They developed the ground-breaking techniques that brought a life-like horse to the stage in War Horse, an epic and thrilling UK production about the bond between a boy and his horse based on the novel by Michael Morpurgo. War Horse was performed to sell out seasons at London’s National Theatre and is now running successfully at the New London Theatre on the West End before opening On Broadway in 2011.
Apart from stimulating broader debate on puppetry, the company also aims to raise the quality of this theatre-making genre with their annual contest. Five awards with R7,000 prize money per winner will be available annually. With the exception of the award for Best Production, only people from Africa will be eligible for the awards. This year would be the first of five annual competitions. The first three years would honour exclusively the best works – with prize money – at Out The Box. Thereafter, the awards would be open to any persons producing puppet theatre in the Western Cape.
The 2010 Handspring Awards for Puppetry prizes went to:
The Best Puppet Production:
Angel , created by the Duda Paiva Company of the Netherlands.This prize was created in memory of Lillie Herzberg, the founder on UNIMA in South Africa
The Best Visual Theatre Production:
27 Windows, 4 Doors and 2 Taps, created by Mwenya Kabwe & Mandla Mbothwe
The Best Puppet Design:
Thierry Cassuto and Zapiro for production on ZA News.
The Best Puppet Manipulation:
Winner: Ilana Cilliers for the production Adventures of a Little Nobody. This prize was created in honour of Gawie de Wet, a pioneer puppeteer whose impassioned performances are remembered by many who grew up on the Cape Flats.
The Best Puppet Debut:
Beren Belknap for the production Lenny and the Wasteland. This award was created in honour of Fourie Nyamande who was an extremely talented puppeteer and actor who died far too young
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