This year in Cape Town South Africa, let’s celebrate the Living Waters through giant puppetry at the Boschendal Plum Harvest Festival on the weekend of the 10th- 13th March.

After the great success of the giant elephant puppet walk with the Ukwanda Puppetry Collective at the Boschendal Plum Harvest Festival in 2021, we will be celebrating this year’s festival with giant puppets to raise awareness of the living waters and aquatic life of our planet.

On Sunday the 13h March at 11am, the puppet walk will begin by the picnic area at the entrance to the farm, proceeding through the main grounds and ending with a short performance in front of the new Norval Art Gallery (Boschendal Manor House). The walk will feature a giant redfin fish puppet created by the award winning Ukwanda Puppet Company from the Centre for Humanities Research (CHR) at the University of the Western Cape and performed by puppeteers and musicians from Net vir Pret in Barrydale. This walking performance brings awareness to the rivers and waters in the immediate area, to water sustainability and aims to inspire new generations of eco-warriors.

The three giant puppets for this year’s performance were originally created for the Barrydale Giant Puppet Parade in the Klein Karoo, a decade-long partnership between the Centre for Humanities Research at the University of the Western Cape, the Handspring Puppet Trust and Net vir Pret, to raise support for the plight of the local rivers and an indigenous fynbos fish, the redfin minnow, teetering on the brink of extinction.

The performance at the 2022 Plum Harvest Festival, will be preceded by two days of puppetry making workshops with children from the valley facilitated by the Ukwanda Puppet Company and Dr Aja Marneweck of the CHR, and Herman Witbooi and Clarisa Jonas of Net vir Pret in Barrydale.

Following the workshops, and with these new puppets, the participating children will join the walk with the giants on Sunday.