Kenya's Community Health Awareness Puppeteers

Shoeless children in tattered clothes scattered, helter-skelter, running down compact, unpaved and garbage-strewn streets. Their screaming was a blend of fear and excitement, their faces going from shock to beaming smiles as they turned, their runs alternating between flight and leaps of playfulness. Infants wailed with spasms of tears, adults stood curious, amazed, and bemused. All of the action on the street came to a halt as an eight-foot tall puppet topped by an enormous cartoon-like head shocked the grim reality of the slum into the surreal with a perfect equatorial blue sky as backdrop.

The "mobilization" puppet stooped to shake hands with shop owners selling everything from live chickens to herbal medicines to used clothing. The puppet performer hugged grandmas, chased children, greeted unsuspecting shoppers, pushed carts, and directed traffic. The puppet did what it was supposed to do, namely cause a stir and draw attention, mobilizing an audience to see a performance by CHAPS—Community Health Awareness Puppeteers. The Nairobi-based puppet company has pioneered the application of puppets to convey vital information to the semi-literate and uninformed masses of Kenya. A March 2002 performance was their third at the notorious Korogocho slum outside of Nairobi dealing with HIV/AIDS awareness and prevention. Primarily refugees fleeing the ongoing Sudanese civil war occupied the 20-year old Korogocho slum, one of many illegal slums occupying outlying Nairobi City Council land. Although the residents of the slum were considered "Kenyans" the slum was essentially self-governed and a world onto itself. Because of the Sudanese connection the slum was known for its availability of black market guns and criminal activity. "The police don't come here," CHAPS puppeteer Simon Musau informed me as we drove down a maze of dusty streets.

The tall, gray puppet was instantly recognizable as being associated with CHAPS and its Puppets Against AIDS program. The puppet head, Styrofoam covered with papier mâché was created by and for Kenyans with the assistance of Gary Friedman, a South African puppeteer who originally applied the use of puppets during the apartheid era. Friedman has since expanded puppetry use to serve education and social change throughout sub-Sahara Africa. "Large gray puppets can be seen by huge crowds on a busy street and are a sure way to gather people to watch the show. Their gray skin-tones rid the performance of any racial and cultural stigmas and taboos associated with AIDS being transmitted from one particular group of people to another," Friedman told me. In addition to the large, community mobilization puppets, he introduced and trained Kenyan puppeteers in the use of Muppets, glove, and rod puppets. Though the puppets had their origins in a Euro-American tradition, Kenyans quickly adopted and transformed the form to suit local aesthetics. "Kenyan puppeteers are not simply passive and accepting of puppetry models and modes of performance. They must consider local conditions, traditions, and audiences, they are evolving the art form of puppetry," Friedman said.

Puppetry in Kenya has flourished because it is non-threatening and has the uncanny ability to entertain and communicate simply and directly. Curiously, puppetry, or the animation of figures within a narrative context, was never developed into a performance tradition in Africa. Puppetry per se is not indigenous to Africa except for a few West African traditions, most notably the thousand year old "kotébe" from the Niger River area of Mali. The absence of puppetry from the otherwise vibrant and varied African performance traditions is most likely due to Africa's use of totemic, fetish, and mnemonic figures which have been associated with witchcraft in a number of ethnic groups. Puppetry was originally introduced to Africa during the colonial era and then used sporadically, in combination with Theatre for Development activities, since the 1980s. However, the fact that puppets have no history or tradition in Africa is a part of its success. Because there...