The 3rd edition of the Carthage Puppetry Arts Days (JAMC), placed this year under the theme “Puppetry, Art and Life” will take place from March 19 to 26 at the Cité de la culture in Tunis.
The JAMC is back after two years of absence (2020 and 2021), due to restrictions linked to the Covid-19 health crisis which forced the whole world to cancel or postpone cultural and artistic events.
The holding of the festival coincides with the winter school holidays, scheduled until the end of March, to the delight of the child public in particular.
The program for this new edition was unveiled on Tuesday 15th during a press briefing held in a hotel in Tunis. International puppet troupes are on view. The string puppet will be at the heart of this 2022 edition which will see the participation of puppeteers from 18 countries.
After Canada in 2019, Egypt will be the guest country of honor for the 2022 JAMC, which coincides with the celebration of the Tunisian-Egyptian year of culture 2021-2022. there will be 4 Egyptian shows with a tribute to famous puppeteers, Mohamed Kochek and Mohamed Noreddine.
The Tunisian puppeteer, Mohamed Bechir Jalled, a pioneer of this art who contributed to the creation of the puppet theater movement in Tunisia, will also be honored alongside the Neapolis association of Children’s Theater in Nabeul.
The opening ceremony will be marked by a parade of giant puppets which will walk along Avenue Bourguiba, before heading towards Avenue Mohamed V which will take it inside the Cité de la Culture, which will house, as in each edition, most of the CMAJ program.
“Amazonia street 2” is a show by the Tunisian street circus, Paparoni which will be given during the first day of the festival.
An official ceremony will be held at the Théâtre des Régions while the large theater square in front of the Tunis Opera Theater will see a performance of luminous puppets produced by puppeteers from the National Center for Puppetry.
According to Monia Messaadi, president of the JAMC 2022, and director of the general manager of the Center national d’art de la marionnette, the rather rich and diversified daily program has been concocted, at the rate of six shows per day intended for children and adults as well.
The making of the puppet will be at the center of the six workshops on the menu which will be led by foreign specialists including the Egyptians Abdelhamid Hosni, Ridha Hassanine, Mohamed Fawzi and Maya Mouhab, the Czech Pavel Truhlar and the Turkish Cemal Fatih Polat.
Four-day workshops will be organized for the benefit of cultural facilitators in four governorates (Ariana Manouba, Nabeul and Tunis). They will be supervised by Lassaad ben Hassine and Kamel Allaoui.
A symposium on “the inventory of puppet theater in the Arab world” will take place on March 22 at the headquarters of the Tunis Institute of Translation.
The Days will be open to the regions including Nabeul and Mahdia in addition to certain areas of Greater Tunis such as the city of Ben Arous and certain districts of El Mourouj and Hammam-Lif. The organizers have announced the holding of shows in these regions, which come from Italy, Belgium, Portugal, Spain and the Czech Republic.
The central hall of the Cité de la Culture will house an exhibition and sale of clay puppets made by the potters of Sejnane in Bizerte, whose know-how is listed as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
There will also be sugar puppets that are specific to the region of Nabeul in Cap Bon. The multicolored sugar dolls, which also come in the form of animals, are usually sold during Hijri New Year celebrations.
The Carthage Puppetry Arts Days, JAMC, is an annual event organized by the National Center for Puppetry Arts, under the aegis of the Ministry of Cultural Affairs, and the City of Culture represented by the National Establishment for the Promotion of Festivals and Cultural and Artistic Events (ENPFMCA).
The JAMC are an annual event that sheds light on the art of puppetry in Tunisia, which remains little exploited or poorly known as well. This meeting is a renewed opportunity to further promote this art through a program focused on the Tunisian experience as well as on the arts of puppetry in the world.
