Quick start for new year of change

Bishop Desmond Tutu with his alter egos Tutu & Tata on ZA News

My sincere apologies for taking so long to post something on this blog! I can explain. We arrive home, after spending six weeks catching up with family and friends in South Africa, to an eviction notice. The house we are living in, here in Melbourne, is being chopped down in a few short weeks. This means we have to find alternative accommodation really soon. So, as you can imagine, the past few weeks have been spent driving around the town 'house hunting'. We're slowly getting there, but that still means the long pack-up and move has to begin very soon.

But let me tell you about Africa - the dark continent. Besides entertaining my two little boys, which was a full-time job, I did get to start shooting a documentary film on 'Puppetry and Politics' for the international conference of the same name, which is scheduled to take place 20-22 November in Charleville-Mezieres in France.

Some of the wonderful artists whom I recently interviewed in South Africa, all working in puppetry related to politics in some way were Thierry Casuto, producer of ZA News, Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones from Handspring Puppet Company, Cindy Mkaza, head of UNIMA South Africa, Janni Younge from Handspring, Aja Marneweck, who directs puppetry productions and runs workshops internationally and Conrad Koch, with his ventriloquist puppet Chester. Conrad has his own TV show, where he interviews local politicians and sends up the political highs and lows in South Africa.
If anyone is interested in attending the conference in late-November in France, please do get in touch.