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Union Internationale de la Marionnette

Non-Governmental Organization affiliated to UNESCO

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World Puppetry Day

Last updated: 11-02-2024

What is the World Puppetry Day?

Launched in 2003 by UNIMA, the World Puppetry Day (WPD) 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 Centres and their members.

This Day is the occasion to collectively and as widely as possible carry the diversity of puppetry arts today!

Theme of the 2024: The Climate

Share your events & Social Media Frame

Do not hesitate to share and tag your programs and photos!

On Facebook and Instagram with the hastags: 
#WPD2024 #UNIMA

Then, depending on your language:
#WorldPuppetryDay2024
#DiaMundialMarioneta2024
#JourneeMondialeMarrionette2024

#(AnyLanguageWelcome)


Download Social Media Frame: WPD 2024 FRAME


WPD 2024 EVENT MAP:

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.

WPD Message 2023: International message of Nina Malíková – 21st march 2023.

WPD Message 2024: Coming Soon!

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. 

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!

We call upon you all to submit video sequences between 15 to 30 seconds (filmed horizontally) of your training courses, creations, shows, workshops, constructions, drawings, scenography, animations. Feel free to invite students in schools, recreation centres, theatres, and workshops to participate. Your contributions will be associated with all those we will have received to make a great video that will be broadcasted by all on World Puppet Day!
Send your file (maximum 30 seconds) no later than February 15th via a file transfer site (WeTransfer, Sendit, Dropbox, etc) to the following address: web@unima.org   

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 
  • … 

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?