What is the World Puppetry Day?
Launched in 2003 by UNIMA, the World Puppetry Day is both a real tool for the promotion of puppetry arts and a project allowing to unite the puppet actors of the same territory.
This world day seeks to promote the puppet arts by defending, among other objectives:
- the maintenance and the safeguard of the traditions and, in parallel, the renewal of the art of puppetry
- the use of puppetry as a means of ethical and aesthetic education
The World Puppet Day is now celebrated all over the world through its National Centers and their members.
This Day is the occasion to collectively and as widely as possible carry the diversity of puppetry arts today!
Watch the video montage for of 2023, “Call of the Forest”
A message that connects us
Every year since 2006, a personality from the artistic or cultural sector is solicited to write the World Puppet Day message. It is a question of putting forward the values that UNIMA carries and that are in this millenary art, to carry a message of cohesion and to shed light on this art.
Here is the message of 2023 by Professor Nina Malíková.
- Messages to UNIMA for World Puppetry Day
- Poster for World Puppetry Day 2023
- Message of Ranjana Pandey for the World Puppetry Day 2022
- International Message of Audrey Azoulay – 21st march 2021
- World Puppetry Day: share your events
- International Message – Voices of America for Peace – 21st march 2020
- International Message of Dadi Pudumjee – 21st march 2019
- International Message of Werewere-Liking Gnepo – 21st march 2018
- International Message of Nancy Lohman Staub – 21st march 2017
- International Message of Behrooz Gharibpour – 21st march 2015
- International Message of Eduardo Di Mauro – 21st march 2014
- International Message of Roberto De Simóne – 21st March 2013
- International Message of Joan Baixas – 21st March 2012
- International Message of Henryk Jurkowski – 21st March 2011
- International Message of Robert Lepage – 21st March 2010
- International Message of Petr Matásek – 21st of March 2009
- International Message of Jean-Pierre Guingané – 21st march 2008
- International Message of Sennosuke Takeda – 21st march 2007
- International Message of Michael Meschke – 21st March 2006
- International Message of Dario Fo – 21st march 2005
- International Message of Sirppa Sivori-Asp – 21st march 2004
- International Message of Dr. Kapila Vatsayayan – 21st March 2003
A common poster
Every year since 2018, carte blanche is given to an artist in the world to make the poster for World Puppetry Day.
Each participating structure can use the World Puppetry Day poster, ask for it in its language at UNIMA and then download it on the UNIMA website.
- Posters 2023 – Ricardo Abella
- Posters 2022 – Adrian Kohler
- Posters 2021 – Maryam Samaan
- Posters 2020 – Osvaldo Gabrieli
- Posters 2019 – Zahra Sabri
- Posters 2018 – Joan Baixas
A video project
UNIMA proposes each year a video project to be realized individually or through workshops with children. This proposal is sent all over the world and all the videos are edited to be broadcast on the 21st of March! Here are some previous montages!
What can we propose for the World Puppet Day?
Already, we can use what we have in common: The message, the poster and the video.
Then, this World Puppetry Day is celebrated in multiple forms. Each one appropriates it in its own way and proposes actions of different kinds:
- festivals,
- shows,
- puppet parade,
- exhibitions, installations,
- workshops for young and old,
- Behind-the-Scenes tours and onsite activities (e.g.: workshops, mini-performances, etc.)
- readings of the World Puppet Day message,
- night of the puppet
- …
Share your events for 2023
Creating a common narrative
World Puppet Day is the perfect opportunity to create a multi-handed story!
- Create links and make with the educational and social structures on your territory: schools, colleges, social centers, hospitals…
- Imagine with other cultural associations: museums, companies, festivals, theaters, associations of amateur practices…
- Associate the elected representatives of your territories, your cities, your regions…
- Create a common communication tool with partners, with all those who propose events, workshops, shows, meetings, exhibitions, training courses, competitions… for this day on the scale of a city, a territory, a country, a continent!
- Disseminate information about World Puppet Day to your partners, your audiences, your network…
- Communicate your information on the UNIMA website and on the facebook page of the World Puppet Day.
TOGETHER, WE CREATE THE MOVEMENT!
So, do we go?