ABSTRACT
An array of puppetry traditions has developed in West Africa over centuries, including full-body puppets in Malian masquerades and hand-held wooden fetishes for sacred and secular ceremonies and celebrations in Benin and Togo. African puppetry construction and performances have been predominantly male practices. However, Adama Lucie Bacco, Werewere Liking, and Vicky Tsikplonou have broken traditional gender barriers to affirm themselves as important puppetry artists. In the process, they have pushed the boundaries of women’s positions in Africa’s historical narratives and cultural practices. This chapter considers how Liking and her group Ki-Yi Puppets & Dances in Côte d’Ivoire, Tsikplonou and her group Evaglo, and Bacco and her group Bouam, both of Togo, have reshaped the field of puppetry performance in West Africa. In addition to opening the field of West African puppetry to a larger pool of artists through the inclusion and empowerment of women, the decades of public performances and advocacy by these pioneering women have reaffirmed the status of puppet forms as agents of social change in their communities through female-inclusive and female-centered work that tackles important social issues like the education of girls, HIV testing, and female genital mutilation.
