Karetao ki te Ao
Māori puppets take on the world
In May this year, Hinemoa Jones and James Webster of Taowaru Puppetry Arts took Māori puppetry to the world stage, travelling to Chuncheon, South Korea, for the 24th International UNIMA Puppetry Congress. The pair were invited to the congress as the recipients of the prestigious Heritage Award in recognition of their dedication to reviving and safeguarding the ancient art of karetao Māori (Māori puppetry). Through Taowaru Puppetry Arts, they continue to champion the revitalisation of this unique indigenous tradition for future generations. In this article, they describe what it was like attending the event and connecting and sharing ideas with puppeteers from around the world. Their visit was supported by a grant from the Foundation's Arts Practitioners fund.
James Webster (left) and Hinemoa Jones (right) with puppeteers Anurupa Roy (India) and Narguess Majd (France) at the opening ceremony and parade of the Chuncheon World Puppet Festival 2025
There was so much to experience in the beautiful city of Chuncheon, which sits nestled in the currents and bends of the Soyang river.
Running in tandum with the UNIMA congress was the Chuncheon Puppet Festival - Asia’s largest puppet festival.
People manipulating 15ft papermache white birds soaring above the crowds on the wings of a 10-piece brass band. From entire life stories from birth, love, children and death played out with just two hands and a green balloon all the way through to the building of a buddist temple on stage. There was both a diversity of performance and culture to explore and connect with.
The opening day of the congress is when we (along with others) received the Heritage Award that took us to Korea in the first place.
It was a morning of feeling excited and priveledged to sit amoung puppet masters, practicing ancient traditions from all over the world.
Puppets at the festival parade, including Taowaru Puppetry Arts Karetao Māori (bottom left)
There was very little shared language amoung us all; however, we did share generations of shared understanding around ritual, ceremony, craft, revival, taboo and stories of people and their lands as expressed through these puppetry traditions.
Many years ago, we started developing our own karetao performance. So much knowledge of how karetao were used in Māori life was lost and only fragments remain.
As we’ve explored ways to work with taonga (treasures), our practice has naturally evolved to become deeply rooted in ritual and ceremony.
We believe that karetao acted as conduits, holders and directors of space, that invited the recipient/audience to consider and feel different perspectives through story.
This is not a new idea or concept in te ao Māori, infact it is a normal way to be and see the world. It was a wonderful feeling to meet other people who practice with their puppets in a similar way.
We shared the Heritage Awards with Japanese puppet masters.
Hinemoa and James performing their karetao Māori show 'Te Ao'
In South Korea, puppeteers go house to house at New Years using their puppets to cleanse peoples homes of bad spirit energy. There is, of course, a lot more to say about this ancient practice. It is the intricacies and layers of all that diversity that impressed apon us the most while in Korea.
We spent those days fumbling through with our google translate, running hot as we tried to connect and communicate with the locals as well as all the international puppet peoples.
After a while, we realised that google could not begin to translate what was unfolding for us all in our world of puppetry bubble.
English was not the mother tongue in Korea nor at the congress. Without a common or dominant language to guide us all, we found ourselves with listening ears and humble hearts as we went about making potential life-long connections.
Sometimes it was the puppet at the end of someone’s hands that reached in first to make an introduction. It really is a curious thing that a manmade arrangement of materials (a puppet) can eminate such emotion, intrigue, enquiry and even compassion.
Hinemoa and James with local Korean puppeteers at the Chuncheon World Puppet Festival 2025 parade
We met people who use puppets to heal, to sing, to dance, to pray, to break down borders, to cross borders, to reconceptualise war into peace, to imagine different ways of being.
The rich diversity in the world of puppetry is expansive. It really is a rongoā, a type of medicine where there is potential relief for everyone who dares to enter the spaces puppetry creates.
We could not have picked a better country to have these profound experiences in. The local Chuncheon people we met seemed to move with a naural sense of reverance for the world they live in.
So, we have returned home, renewed, and with our hearts and creative minds overflowing with possibilities of how and where our karetao may travel in the world, who they may be able to engage with and how they might continue to contribute to community and global healing through indigenous arts knowledge and practice.
At this stage, we must acknowledge the generousity and support of the Asia New Zealand Foundation who helped fund this adventure into the minds, hearts and theatres of puppeteers from across the world.
The Foundation's Arts Programme brings Asia into the mainstream of New Zealand arts by inspiring New Zealand arts professionals to grow their connections and knowledge of Asia. It also supports the presentation of Asian arts in partnership with New Zealand arts organisations and events.
