Aja Marneweck

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

Biography

Aja Marneweck is a professional visual performance artist, puppeteer and director/founder of The Paper Body Collective. Marneweck's artistic work is in the primary mediums of puppetry, multimedia and imaginative storytelling.

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. In 2005 and 2006 she studied in Charleville Meziere, France in the summer workshops at the prestigious International Institute De La Marionette, receiving bursaries from the French Institute of South Africa and ESNAM. 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

Marneweck began her puppetry career with Gary Friedman in Cape Town in 2001, collaborating on the site-specific puppetry production, Looking For a Monster.

Aja Marneweck established The Paper Body Collective in 2004 in Cape Town. Marneweck was also a founding co-director of the UNIMA SA festival, Out The Box International Festival of Puppetry and Visual Performance from 2005-2009. Marneweck has served on the board of (UNIMA SA) as its chairperson.

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.

Productions include: The Mysteries – Yiimimangaliso (Fugard Theatre, 2010).