photos: vladimir popovićColorful antelopes come to the stage by boat accompanied by music, sturdy buffaloes with decorated horns walk around the village square, elephants growl, wild cats lurk - all these are details of the performances of the Malia puppet theater
The idea, more than thirty years old, to organize an exhibition about marionettes from Mali at the Museum of African Art in Belgrade, based on items from the Jerovšek and Pečar collections, was realized this summer. The exhibition of curator Marija Miloš "Traditional theater puppets of Mali" lasted two months, until last week, and revealed the story of the beginnings of puppet theater and theater in general.
Dr. Zdravko Pečar, ambassador of the SFRY, and his wife Veda Zagorac stayed in Mali from 1967 to 1971, and collected a significant number of objects for their collection, especially Baman and Dogon sculptures and masks. The collection was later partly donated and partly transferred for exhibition to the Museum of African Art in Belgrade. Andrej Jerovšek is from Ljubljana, who was the director of the Emona-engineering project for the construction of a supermarket in Mali from 1976 to 1984. During that time, he formed a collection of 224 objects, masks, sculptures, musical instruments, weapons and other objects of African art, which, together with photographs, notes and hundreds of books about Africa, were purchased by the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum in Ljubljana. Pečarevi and Jerovšek knew each other, and through letters they developed the idea of an "exhibition of marionettes from Mali", but they were unable to realize it. Ten years ago, the curator of the Belgrade Museum of African Art, Marija Miloš, received their correspondence from a colleague from the Slovenian Ethnographic Museum, and this is how the realization of the Mali dolls idea began.
Marija Miloš explains that the puppet theater tradition, which is the heritage of the Republic of Mali, originated in the Segu area. From there it spread to the fishing and farming cultures of the neighboring Baman, Manink, Marko and Somono in the Niger Valley and its tributaries. Common features of these cultures are the traditional social institution of the youth association and their puppet theatre.
The theater is organized as a celebration, a festival filled with numerous performances and live interaction between the performers and the audience in an open space in their villages. "Performances of such a theater are known for puppets, giant and small, representing animals, human beings, mythical creatures and spirits." Thanks to the skill of the performers, traditionally initiated into the secrets of puppetry, the puppets achieve gestures that go from certain simple dance steps to complicated and dynamic movements. In addition to puppet scenes, a traditional show also includes songs by the lead vocalist and choir, performers with masks and costumes, group dances and percussionists on drums. Performances are traditionally held once or twice a year and are an important social and cultural event for the community," says the author of the exhibition and emphasizes that traditional puppet theater is primarily a way of educating about married life, social and economic life, about the natural environment, history and myths. by means of comic or satirical scenes in which realistic or symbolic characters are presented.
A member of the youth association becomes between the ages of thirteen and fifteen. Advancement is determined by age, groups are age-based, and prestige within the group is gained based on demonstrated talent and experience. Men cease to be members of the association at approximately forty-five years of age, and women until they marry. Theater performances were organized exclusively by young members of youth associations, while the older ones followed the preparations, took care of discipline and provided them with support. Performances were held on land and on water: fishing communities on a boat sailing the river, and in the tradition of farmers there were performances in the village square. The audience was on the shore or in the square.
Dolls were made only by male members of the association, although it belonged to the entire village community. There were three types of traditional puppets: anthropomorphic, which is worn with a costume (wearable anthropomorphic doll), zoomorphic, with a geometrized body (wearable zoomorphic doll), and a puppet on a moving stage. Marija Miloš explains that "the materials, method of production, manipulation and animation techniques are diverse. Some wooden puppets (which have other materials on them) belong to the type of puppets on a stick, they can be without moving parts or articulated, they can also have wires or threads with which they are articulated, and their animator, who is always hidden from the eyes of the audience, moves them from below. Some puppets of the human figure consist of a carved head or bust made of wood, which the performer carries on his shoulders or head, and his body is covered by a costume made of textiles, twigs, feathers."
The scenes in which the puppets play were non-verbal, relying on the visual impression and the fact that the audience knew their symbols and their meanings. They represented animals, human beings, mythical creatures and spirits with forms and movements. The oldest puppet characters are those representing wild animals, and the role of the antelope is mandatory. So, for example, Marija Miloš explains, the large bird figure "with the help of strings that the puppeteer moves together with a stick, will turn its head, open and close its long beak, and the crocodile can stalk left and right while snapping its teeth." Colorful antelopes arrive by boat accompanied by music, sturdy buffaloes with decorated horns walk rhythmically in the village square carrying dolls representing crocodiles, fishermen, working women, elephants growl, wild cats lurk, and people from the audience enter the stage to dance next to them. Everything is teeming with life. The interpretation of the roles of animals in the puppet theater is based on recognizable characteristics such as strength, endurance, speed, caution, care, tameness, on the categories of beautiful or ugly, and other meanings. The buffalo is a metaphor for history, group solidarity and the continuation of tradition, the giraffe is compared to a graceful woman, the stork is described as a bird of happiness and pure generosity." Also, dolls had social roles: the village headman and his wife, hunters, musicians, weavers , while horsemen and soldiers with helmets, colonial officials and certain statesmen remind us of historical-political currents. There are also satirical depictions of different social types - a miser, an unfaithful husband and an unfaithful wife, but also the exemplary Yajoroba woman, the beautiful Fulanka who is sometimes accompanied by the voice of a femme fatale, a young girl with braided hair, an elderly man with his wives, and other human or supernatural beings. .
The performance lasted well into the night, with a break at dusk, when it is dinner time and prayer time for Muslims. In some very large villages, where there are two or more youth associations, the festival lasted two weeks or more.
Almost 50 years ago, a school of performing arts was founded at the National Institute of Arts in the Republic of Mali, then the National Drama and National Puppet Group with the intention of spreading the beauty and uniqueness of theater puppets in Mali. The Belgrade Bitef was the reason they came to this part of the world several times.
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