Handspring Trust

08/12/2016

It has been a powerful two and a half weeks here in the Tradouw, the Valley of the Women, learning not only what it means to inhabit the sound, vocalisations, movements and characteristics of eleph…

24/11/2016

Olifantland: Whose Land Is It?
under construction in Barrydale
18 December 2016 @ 6pm is where you should be at.
Route62 is beautiful - bring your kids ...

24/11/2016

Day 2 of the puppetry rehearsals led by our ever fantastic Creative Director Aja Marneweck...teaching our puppeteers on breathing and opening up their vocal channels.

23/11/2016

Olifantland
Whose land is it?


The 6th Barrydale Puppet Parade and Performance brings you Olifantland, a multilingual visual theatre show featuring the latest life size puppets by Adrian Kohler from Handspring Puppet Company in collaboration with UKWANDA Puppet and Design Collective.

Each year Handspring Trust and Net Vit Pret in partnership with Centre for Humanities Research of the University of the Western Cape collaborate to produce a parade in a small farming town on the R62 in the Klein Karoo. This creative collaboration centered on exploring the meaning of reconciliation in South Africa produces site-specific community puppetry performance event that involves nearly 200 local learners, youths and performers, including 120 children making and performing with their own puppets under the guidance of renowned arts educator Jill Joubert.

The 2016 performance entitled Olifantland is inspired by Lawrence Anthony’s novel Elephant Whisperer, a story about re-connecting to these powerful, hugely intelligent creatures. Through it, we explore our ancestral connections to elephants and our own potential to tap into their highly developed emotional landscapes and sense of community and family. Through Olifantland, we explore difficult narratives of land, heritage and history by asking pertinent questions about the meaning of reconciliation. The story is especially timely given that science is only now bringing to light the almost magical capabilities of elephants to communicate between each other via subsonic frequencies over vast distances. They also contribute substantially to the health and growth of eco-systems and delineate the significance of the ancient migration routes across Africa over millennia. Olifantland will provoke as much as it will inspire.


Based on the work of the world-renowned makers of the War Horse, the life size puppets promises to mesmerise audiences in their exploration of these vital questions whilst also igniting the land and people in a communal celebration of the possibilities of life, shared dreams and hope.

Directed and Choreographed by Aja Marneweck, puppetry choreographed by Craig Leo, original music inspired by elephant infrasound by Simon Kohler of FiELD in collaboration with Barrydale and Suurbraak musicians Peter Takelo and Garry Crawford.

05/09/2016

War Horse puppet charity auction in London

http://www.handspringpuppet.co.za/news/war-horse-puppets-charity-auction/

A charity auction to help fund a large scale theatre production that Handspring Trust is doing with a rural community in South Africa’s Little Karoo.

27/07/2016

In Memoriam of Nkosinathi Gaar.

09/12/2015

Die Name Wat Ons Gee / The Names That We Give

To celebrate South African Reconciliation Day, Net Vir Pret, the Handspring Trust and the Centre for Humanities Research (UWC) present a large-scale puppetry parade and performance in Barrydale on 13 December 2015. This year’s performance is titled Die Name Wat Ons Gee/The Names that We Give. It consists of a site-specific community puppetry performance that seeks to remember, honour and celebrate the lives of the ancestors of our communities and the history of the Barrydale community of the Klein Karoo, who were forced into slavery and indentured labour in the farming districts of the Cape in the 1800’s.

Our story is seen through the eyes of the ancient-as-the-hills Tortoise (Skilpad) and the young, impetuous Secretary Bird who has forgotten how to fly. She struggles to find her passion for life and meaning in the world today. Skilpad takes us back in time on a journey of myth and mayhem, through foreign exotic lands, slave ships and perilous boat rides, to the Cape Colony where foreign traded slaves were put to work under trying and difficult conditions.

Amongst the devastating losses of homelands, communities and sacred names which destroyed a sense of belonging and humanity, a young Malagasy slave woman called Pelamana and a Khoi man called Jantjie, strike up a friendship in their shared dream of freedom. Through their heroic story of emancipation, Secretary Bird finds the courage to not only face up to the truth of her past but to re-write her future story of freedom and self-love.

09/12/2015

We are coming close to The Barrydale Parade 2015- Happening this Sunday 13th at Barrydale.

Check out our blog - to see the progress.

http://barrydaleparade.tumblr.com

09/12/2015

Towards the build up of the Barrydale Parade 2015 - we see creative shifts in studio happen from a ideas to realities - objects coming to life... and here Glynn Bartlett has captured it all ... Enjoy!

http://glynntree.tumblr.com/

06/05/2014

Karoo See Parade.
Photos: Jonathan Jones - Urban Lung Productions

11/12/2013

08/03/2013

http://www.handspringpuppet.co.za/newsletter/march-2013/

Having last worked together on the internationally acclaimed War Horse Tom Morris, artistic director of the Bristol Old Vic, and Handspring, will present A Midsummer Night’s Dream on the 7th March 2013.