Puppet figure ·  Tanzania, Sukuma · ID: 3035609

Description

wood, reddish brown patina, extremely long-legged body with separate worked arms, movable fixed by nails, simplified facial features with deeply hollowed eyes, dam., minor missing parts (surface structure, right foot tip), paint rubbed off, cracks, traces of clay;
only recently have Sukuma puppets been discovered for the art market. Aimée Bessire has worked extensively on this phenomenin in her study “At a safe distance: Sukuma Dance Figures and the Arousal of Spectacle”. According to her research, in Sukuma dance competitions, two groups perform simultaneously to compete for a larger audience. Large and small scale dance figures are employed by the groups Bogobogobo and Bakomyalume. The figures are called “mabinda” or “maleba”, terms which seem to refer not only to a specific taxonomy of objects, but rather to a more general notion of attracting the crowd, respectively to describe the objects and paraphernalia associated with the dance.