Aja Marneweck

Aja Marneweck (?-) is a puppeteer, visual performance artist and academic.

Training

She obtained an honours degree in video dance and theatre directing in Johannesburg in the 1990s. After completing a Masters degree in Puppetry at the University of Cape Town in 2004, she went on to create several multimedia puppetry productions that toured to over seven countries between 2005 and 2011. She completed the inaugural PhD in Practice as Research in Puppetry and Visual Performance in the Drama and African Gender Studies departments at the University of Cape Town in 2011.

Contribution to South African theatre, film, media and performance

Aja Marneweck established The Paper Body Collective in 2004 in Cape Town. Marneweck began her puppetry career with Gary Friedman in Cape Town in 2001, collaborating on the site-specific puppetry production, Looking For a Monster.

Marneweck’s puppetry performance techniques, termed Magic Um’lingo, have developed over a period of ten years of performance research. Her experimental approach to puppetry combines multiple puppetry techniques (including full body latex puppetry, giant paper puppetry, shadow puppetry and mask) in a multicultural environment of bodies, site, sound and multimedia. Marneweck’s puppetry production on gender and migrancy, In Medea Res, performed at the Festival Mondial des Théâtres de Marionnettes in Charleville-Mézières, France.

Marneweck also collaborated on various interdisciplinary projects with performance and dance artists, including Jane Taylor and Jay Pather.

Aja Marneweck currently serves on the board of Puppetry South Africa (UNIMA SA) as its chairperson and is one of the founding co-directors of Out The Box International Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance.

Sources

https://wepa.unima.org/en/south-africa/

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