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The world of Puppetry is revelling after a Maori Puppetry presentation of 'Te Ao' in Thailand recently.

'Inspiring', 'primal' and 'fresh' were some of the words used to describe the performance by the Taowaru Performance Company from the Coromandel.

'Te Ao' features elements not yet seen by a majority of puppeteers around the world, which created a stir at the Harmony World Puppetry Festival in Thailand this month. 'Te Ao' is a performance which depicts the creation story from a Maori perspective, using Maori puppets created by artist James Webster.

These puppets have been inspired by customary Maori puppets, many of which can only be found in museums throughout the world. Although they were often used in pre-European times, as of late, the use of these puppets or 'Karetao' have not been widely practised.

James is part of a small group of scholars, artists, musicians, and performers who are working towards reviving the ancient artform of Maori puppetry and storytelling through the use of these puppets, called 'karetao'. The Harmony Puppetry Festival had puppet experts attend from all around the world to share performances from their respective countries.

Each of the performing groups brought with them generations of knowledge of their own puppetry practices, steeped in history, research, critique and their own theory.

Taowaru created a furor of excitement when their performance pushed boundaries and spectators experienced sounds, movements and a language that they had never before experienced in the puppetry world. Some of whom commented that the performance was so different to anything they knew in the world of puppetry, once they realised this, they let go of their inhibitions and the could only sit back and enjoy the experience.

Over 75 countries and 150 performance troupes took part in the World Puppetry Carnival.   As a first time attendee at this Carnival, Taowaru asserted their place with the best and was recognised for their performance on the awards night with a nomination for the best traditional puppetry and winning the award for the most outstanding Ancient puppetry performance.