To help preserve and promote ASEAN’s cultural heritage and thereby promote ASEAN awareness and identity, the ASEAN Foundation supported Papet ASEAN 2010: Celebrating ASEAN Puppet Traditions. The 3-day activity was witnessed by over 500 puppetry enthusiasts in Manila, Philippines on 23-26 February 2010 and featured puppet shows from Indonesia, Malaysia, Philippines and Singapore as well as a seminar on puppetry-in-education. The activity was part of the project “Promoting ASEAN’s Cultural Heritage through Puppetry Symposium, Dialogues, Festivals” organized by the ASEAN Puppetry Association (APA) and funded by the ASEAN Foundation through the Japan-ASEAN Solidarity Fund.
In his remark during the opening ceremony, Dr. Filemon Uriarte, Jr., Executive Director of the ASEAN Foundation, cited the low awareness about ASEAN especially among the youth and expressed hope that ASEAN’s rich cultural heritage, which includes the art of puppetry, could help in promoting regional identity. He emphasized that the ASEAN Foundation was committed to help in the process of building the ASEAN Community through the promotion of the ASEAN identity, people-to-people interaction, and close collaboration among the business sector, civil society, academia and other stakeholders on ASEAN, including networking among puppetry enthusiasts. Dr. Uriarte congratulated the Mother of Philippine Puppetry, Prof. Amelia Lapeña-Bonifacio of the University of the Philippines, who happened to be his professor in Speech I in 1961. Prof. Lapeña-Bonifacio was given an award by the Samahan ng mga Papetur ng Pilipinas for her contribution in revitalizing puppetry in the Philippines. The Secretary-General of the APA, Amb. Tupuk Sutrisno and Mr. Ricardo M. de Ungria, Head, Sub-Commission on the Arts of the Philippine National Council of Culture and the Arts (NCCA) were present to grace the event.
The art and culture of puppetry exists in various forms in almost all the countries of ASEAN and forms part of the cultural heritage of ASEAN as defined in the ASEAN Declaration of Cultural Heritage signed in Bangkok on 25 July 2000. Among the common forms of puppetry in Southeast Asia are the wayang (shadow puppet), marionette, hand, string and water puppets. Apart from being a form of entertainment, puppetry is also commonly used as a medium for social education. It is within these premises that the ASEAN Puppetry Association (APA) was established in 2006, to promote puppetry and coordinate cooperation among artists, enthusiasts and experts in the field of puppetry in ASEAN countries. To further promote puppetry in the region, the ASEAN Foundation is supporting various APA activities in Manila and Brunei Darussalam in 2010. ASEAN puppetry communities including representatives from neighboring Asian countries that also have puppetry cultures like China, India, Japan and the Republic of Korea are expected to participate in these events. |
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