Basil Jones

Basil Jones is a South African puppeteer, theater director and visual artist who co-founded Handspring Puppet Company and helped establish puppetry as a serious dramatic language in contemporary theater. Born in Kimberley in 1951, Jones studied fine art at the University of Cape Town's Michaelis School of Fine Art, graduating in 1974, where he met Adrian Kohler, who became his artistic collaborator and husband. His training in drawing and visual construction shaped a career in which image, object, craft and movement would remain inseparable.

In 1981 Jones and Kohler founded Handspring Puppet Company in Cape Town with fellow Michaelis graduates Jill Joubert and Jon Weinberg. The company began with original plays for children across southern Africa, then shifted toward adult theater in 1985. Working in apartheid South Africa, Handspring addressed political, social and queer themes through puppetry, establishing the form as a serious vehicle for adult drama rather than children's entertainment.

Jones also treated puppetry as a tool for education and community development. In 1990 he established the nonprofit Handspring Trust, which produced *Spider's Place*, a science-education multimedia project for young learners from disadvantaged communities. Later Trust initiatives used puppet making, street parades and performance to support youth development in urban townships and rural areas.

Handspring's artistic reputation grew through unusually close collaborations with other artists. *Woyzeck on the Highveld* and *Ubu and the Truth Commission* joined the company's puppetry to William Kentridge's animation and direction; Jane Taylor wrote *Ubu and the Truth Commission* drawing on testimony from South Africa's Truth and Reconciliation Commission. These works demonstrated how an object could carry political memory while remaining visibly dependent on human operators. International recognition expanded dramatically with the National Theatre's *War Horse*, which premiered in London in 2007. Handspring designed and fabricated the life-size horse puppets, operated by teams of three visible performers. Puppet design and direction came from Jones and Kohler, while Marianne Elliott and Tom Morris directed the production, Rae Smith designed sets, and Toby Sedgwick created movement and horse choreography. Success depended on this collective system of craft, training and ensemble coordination.

Jones and Kohler received a Special Tony Award in 2011 and honorary doctorates from the University of Cape Town in 2012. Their later work included Handspring's contribution to Little Amal, the 3.5-meter puppet of a displaced Syrian girl whose public journey began in 2021, with Jones credited for management coordination alongside a large named team of makers and costume artists. In 2023 the University of Toronto awarded Jones and Kohler honorary Doctor of Laws degrees for artistic innovation, social justice and community work.