In October, Yunlin Province of Taiwan held 2010 International Yunlin Puppet Theater Festival and I was invited by Yunlin Storyhouse to share African culture and stories around puppetry.
I love African drumming but I have not much experience on African puppetry. I decided to take this chance to learn about the puppetry and how it might relate to the GRIOT tradition of West Africa which has been the core of my motivation in designing oneVillage Initiative: the working process and guides for the ICT4D in Africa and beyond.
Since 'Africa' is such a foreign subject to many people in Taiwan, let alone in a small town of Huwei where the event was held, I decided to start with the map of Africa: where it is in relation to Taiwan, how many countries are there in the continent, what kinds of culture could we possibly imagine, which countries colonized Africa and during what period of time, etc..
After getting to know the map of Africa, we began to review the wonderful collection of African puppets that is produced by Gary Friedman in 1987. That means the puppets shown on this video are older than 23 years old AT LEAST!
In my research, I also found some puppetry using traditional Griot instruments, songs, rhythms and puppets to convey a message through storytelling. I found a great example from Togo, West Africa.
In recent history, puppetry has been used for development in Africa: puppet for democracy leading up to the first democratic election in South Africa 1994, political puppets to reflect Kenya democratic development and community health awareness. All these indicate the power of storytelling and the embedded inadequacy of verbal communication that needs to be complimented by our inner voice through puppetry.
We concluded our elementary learning of African puppetry with a drum circle. I never know that my love for African culture would have reached to the tiny little farming town in Taiwan.
