Mandalay Marionettes entertain children at the Universal Cultural Forum earlier this month.

MYANMAR dancers and marionettes shimmied their way into the hearts of señores and señoritas in Mexico’s second largest city, Monterrey, this month at the 2007 Universal Cultural Forum.

The Mandalay Marionettes group was invited to attend and perform at the fair held from October 1 to 7, which included more than 1000 groups from all around the world performing at conferences, concerts and exhibits inside the expo.

While marionettes were the main focus for the 15-member group, they also performed traditional dance, song and harp shows along with a live traditional orchestra.

Managing director of the group Daw Ma Ma Naing said the show turned out to be a huge success.

“We decided to include other traditional per-formances, which the audience loved,” she said. “The crew put on a spectacular show. We tried our very best to represent our country and I think it showed.”

The group performed a total of 16 shows during the week: three one-hour shows per day split into two groups — one for adults and one for kids.

Children’s shows incorporated animal puppets and traditional dolls set against Himalayan mountain scenes, whereas the adults were treated to traditional song and dance.

Daw Ma Ma Naing said some of the shows proved to be too hard for the audience to tear themselves away from.

“We have had excellent feedback. I think everybody, of all age groups, enjoyed the shows. At one stage, when the show ended, security had to force people to leave!”

Ma Win Thapyae Tun demonstrates the difficult and intriguing Myanmar finger curl to Mexican audience members.

Sponsored by UNESCO, the universal forum is celebrated every three years at a different venue around the world from September 20 through to December 8. In 2004 it was held in Barcelona, Spain.

Daw Ma Ma Naing has travelled the world with her troupe, visiting 20 festivals in 20 different countries. It was on one of these trips that the forum directors discovered the art of Myanmar marionettes and consequently invited her group for the week-long stay in Mexico.

“I have been blessed with these opportunities and I will dedicate myself to marionettes for the rest of my life,” she said.

The puppeteer established the Mandalay Marionettes Theatre in 1990 with Daw Naing Yee Mar and they quickly became known for their spectacular night performances for tourists. Keeping with tradition, the shows would go on for the entire night at pagoda festivals, ending in the wee hours of the morning.

Five other puppeteers make up her festival group, all of whom are committed to preserving the art.

“In terms of creative culture, we don’t want to see marionettes just fall by the wayside,” said U Than Nyunt, puppeteer and puppetmaker for the theatre group. “We don’t want to see all of the time that our elders have spent on the art wasted.”

One way to prevent this is to target the next generation.

The group is in talks to produce an educational story to be aired on national television, that will include marionettes and popular Myanmar cartoon characters.

The group also participates in HIV educational performances around the country.

But Daw Ma Ma Naing said the best way of protecting the artform is to perform as often as possible alongside other traditional arts.

Ian Burnett, a teacher at International Language and Business Centre, said he has faith that marionettes will survive in Myanmar. He has seen Indonesian, Cambodian, Vietnamese and European puppet shows and said the Myanmar way of puppeteering looks to be the most difficult to perform.

“It seems more complicated and unique but I think what really makes the shows stand out is that they use performers in the shows as puppets, which is nice,” he said.

Mandalay Marionettes have their fingers crossed that they will be invited to the next Universal Cultural Forum in 2010, this time in Japan.