In short
This episode of BBC World Service’s In the Studio follows The Herds, a public-art project using life-size puppet animals to dramatize climate change. Topic: Between April–August 2025, a herd of puppet animals traveled about 20,000 km from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, “fleeing” floods, droughts, fires, and famines, to urge climate action. Guests/backgrounds: Amir Nizar Zouabi (Palestinian theatre maker; created the herd); Craig Leo (puppeteer/designer at Ukwanda Studios, Cape Town); Alice Evans (head of the Emerging Company, 42 performers aged 21–35 from 19 countries); Anthony Mazzene (Monsena Productions co-artistic director/choreographer); Claire Benyonin (French producer); Tracy Seward (producer); Fraser Orford (general manager/logistics); Catherine Abigail Ward (actor/puppeteer, Emerging Company); local puppeteers Peter (Cornwall) and Eva Duisman (Netherlands).
Key claims
puppets are biodegradable (plywood, hand-torn cardboard); encounters shift from curiosity to fear/panic, then to shared culture; the project builds community and activism through performance.
Notable examples
Kinshasa flood cancellation turned into impromptu cultural dancing; Arles chaos then calm “wake” with Graziel; Venice Biennale walk with dancers; London Royal Opera House aria; Manchester Camerata stampede; Arctic glacier arrival highlights real melting.
Written by AI. May contain mistakes. Listen to the episode to check what was said.
Chapters
Tap a time to open that second in VOThe Journey of the Puppet Herd
0:59 to 2:25
Exploration of a puppet herd's journey representing climate change awareness.
“a herd of life-size puppet animals travelled 20 ,000 kilometres from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, creating a vast work of public art about the need for climate change action.”
Collaboration with Ukwanda Studios
2:27 to 4:04
Nizar discusses the collaboration with Ukwanda Studios to create puppets.
“To achieve this, Nizar collaborated with Ukwanda Studios, the renowned puppet creators in Cape Town, South Africa.”
The Puppets' Journey and Cultural Exchange
4:16 to 6:38
A glimpse into the puppets’ migration and interactions in various cities.
“The larger animals, such as the elephants, giraffes and kudu antelopes, are operated by puppeteers inside their bodies.”
The Emerging Company and Its Impact
6:41 to 7:59
Introduction of the Emerging Company and their role in the project.
“And it was one of the most profound, most beautiful experiences I had on this journey because it was accurate, because it was literally...”
Performances in European Cities
8:04 to 14:00
Experiences and challenges of the herd's performances across Europe.
“The emerging company is a group of 42 21 to 35 year olds who have come from 19 different countries.”
Introduction to the Chaos of Climate Change
14:00 to 14:59
Listeners are introduced to the theme of chaos caused by climate change.
“You will have like two millions of people in the streets.”
The Journey of the Herd: Puppets in Action
14:59 to 18:35
The herd of puppets embark on their journey through Paris and London, engaging audiences.
“It's midsummer day and Paris parties away in sweltering heat.”
Humming as a Unifying Force
18:35 to 20:33
Performers share how humming brings balance and unity to their experience.
“It's early dawn on a deserted tower bridge and the puppet animals stampede across towards a group of children who eagerly welcome them to the city.”
Community Interactions in Aarhus
20:33 to 24:41
Catherine shares experiences of community interactions with the herd in Denmark.
“we've been using humming as a way in which to balance the body and all the energies that are around us.”
The Herd's Climactic Arrival at the Glacier
24:41 to 27:34
The herd reaches the Arctic, reflecting on the impact of climate change.
“This one really feels like an exploration, like the animals are finding a sanctuary or a safe place to rest.”
Transcript
Automatic transcript. May contain errors.0:00Amir Nizar Zuabi:This BBC podcast is supported by ads outside the UK.
0:30David Lan:us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott. So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.
0:58Amir Nizar Zuabi:Between April and August 2025, a herd of life-size puppet animals travelled 20 ,000 kilometres from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, creating a vast work of public art about the need for climate change action. I'm Roger James Elsgood, and I've been following the herds for this edition of In the Studio.
1:25Amir Nizar Zuabi:This is Amir Nizar Zouabi, the acclaimed Palestinian theatre maker. Nizar created the herd and is the artistic director of the project.
1:36David Lan:When I was thinking of this project, the first image was a group of animals somewhere in the rainforests of the Congo perk up. They get alarmed. they feel that something is completely wrong and they start running. And as they run, more and more animals join them. And it's mystical. It's not completely explained. Nobody really knows why it's happening. And that's the energy I wanted to convey. This energy is best conveyed without long speeches. Sometimes words deconstruct, not construct. Sometimes it's about capturing wind, right? We're trying to capture the wind left behind when a herd is running past you.
2:25David Lan:You don't need words for that. You need beauty.
2:30Amir Nizar Zuabi:To achieve this, Nizar collaborated with Ukwanda Studios, the renowned puppet creators in Cape Town, South Africa.
2:39David Lan:I started working with Ukwanda and found an incredible, talented, top-of-their-game group of designers. But my design brief to them was on borderline impossible. I asked them to design a big herd of various species in various sizes that will be created from accessible materials. The look and feel should be cardboard, because that's the material I felt will convey the fragility I wanted. But it's also organic. It feels like nature somehow. My name is Craig Leo. I'm a puppeteer, puppetry director and puppetry designer. Two years ago, they asked us if we would be able to design 13 prototypes of various species from around the world so that we could create these wonderful puppets that would then be copied and rebuilt in various locations from Africa right through to Sweden.
3:50David Lan:So it's almost an impossible brief. I was an unpopular character in the workshop for a long time. But in true testimony to their talent, to their absolute genius, they managed to go one by one, animal by animal, and crack it, and create animals that are expressive, that are emotive, that are buildable and scalable.
4:15Amir Nizar Zuabi:The puppet animals are all life-size and made entirely from biodegradable materials, mainly plywood and hand-torn cardboard. The larger animals, such as the elephants, giraffes and kudu antelopes, are operated by puppeteers inside their bodies. The giraffe's three-metre high head is controlled by a puppeteer walking backwards with a long stick. The gorillas, lions and wildebeests are animated by being held by their limbs and heads, and the group of mischievous small vervet monkeys are traditional marionette characters, animated from above by strings and sticks.
5:01Amir Nizar Zuabi:With the puppets and their humans assembled and ready to go, the herd begin their journey up the west coast of Africa visiting Kinshasa, Lagos, Dakar and Marrakesh. The essential narrative of the herd's long journey north is that they are fleeing floods, droughts, fires and famines in their natural habitats. and must migrate northward to find suitable places to live. Away from the jungles and savannas of the tropics, they encounter, for the first time, crowds of humans in busy, noisy cities, and they become bewildered and frightened. Their reaction initially was one of curiosity, but this quickly turns to fear and panic.
5:48Amir Nizar Zuabi:It was never going to be a smooth journey.
5:51David Lan:in kinshasa in really early days we had a flood it started raining and the city flooded and really dramatic rain so we had to cancel an event and we all a group of i think almost 100 people huddled in this room and as we were huddled in the room the drumming band that was part of the performance that got canceled started drumming and the participants that were freezing started dancing and one of the puppets that was out of the boxes in order to show somebody was grabbed by Uquanda and suddenly something very special happened because suddenly we were not performing but it became an insight into the depth of culture of somebody else's culture and there was an old man who approached our gorilla and started dancing slash becoming a gorilla.
6:48David Lan:And it was one of the most profound, most beautiful experiences I had on this journey because it was accurate, because it was literally... They weren't in performance. They were in sharing.
7:00Amir Nizar Zuabi:By the time the herds arrived in southern Europe, the number of puppet animals was increasing exponentially. More puppeteers were required.
7:10David Lan:And I went, let's invite young performers from all around the world to become the stable thing in this. I didn't understand how profound they will become for the project. I thought we'll have a company, they will bring stability, they will help us teach, they will also help me create more complicated, more sophisticated moments of performance. I didn't know that they will become, for me as well, almost a new way of thinking of how to create on scale in community with people.
7:52Amir Nizar Zuabi:This group of aspiring puppeteers became known as the Emerging Company, the Eco, and travelled the entire European journey with the puppet animals.
8:03David Lan:My name is Alice Evans and I'm head of the Emerging Company for the herds. The emerging company is a group of 42 21 to 35 year olds who have come from 19 different countries. They've come from many different backgrounds, dancing, acting. Some are already puppeteers, but they are all emerging artists in some way.
8:26Amir Nizar Zuabi:I caught up with Alice again in a Canalside cafe in Venice, along with The Herd's executive producer, Sarah Loda. They told me about the Herb's visit to the French city of Arles the previous week.
8:39David Lan:I think it hit the nail on the head of what we were trying to create, of the city becoming disturbed and chaotic and explosions. There was smoke coming out of the water fountain. The animals were going in all directions. People were having to jump out of the way. there were kind of people, paratechnics, and the kind of small streets of this French little city. And, yeah, it was kind of turbulence in the city. It was exactly the energy, the kind of what the herd should be creating. And then they got to a space that became calm. It was with a company called Graziel, based in Arles. And they're a circus company and absolutely incredible, beautiful performances.
9:48And there were these women on halls.
9:55David Lan:Tall towers, yeah. Yeah, sort of balancing on the top of incredibly tall, thin poles that started to sort of gently sway and then swayed really dramatically to the point where these performers were almost like coming towards the ground. And then the giraffe started to sway to kind of mimic this movement and all of the animals started. and it became sort of like a... What do you say? Like a wake. It had that feeling of grief and these beings, these humans and these animals were swaying together, like a mourning or something.
10:43Amir Nizar Zuabi:In Venice, the herds became part of the Venice Biennale.
10:50David Lan:I'm Anthony Mazzene. I'm one of the co-artistic directors at Monsena Productions and one of the choreographers for The Herds Venice.
11:05David Lan:Just had a one-kilometre walk of an outdoor experience with massive life-size puppets, elephants, giraffes, alongside some beautiful choreography.
11:18David Lan:so today we had a performance alongside the wonderful dancers from Studio Wayne McGregor's La Biennale College which is 16 young professional dancers we've been working with for the past three weeks
11:34David Lan:it's been a mammoth task but I really enjoyed the one
11:44David Lan:I think we did pretty well by the audience reaction.
11:48Amir Nizar Zuabi:And with applause ringing in their ears, the herd stampede out of Venice en route to Paris.
12:00Amir Nizar Zuabi:And into a vast soundstage studio, big enough to try out chariot races, where director Nizar is rehearsing a new team of local puppeteers.
12:18Amir Nizar Zuabi:In each of the cities the Herds visit, their encounters are created and developed by a local producer. This is Claire Benyonin, the Herd's French producer.
12:28David Lan:We have four shows in Paris. The first one is in Saint-Trois. is next to the place where we have been rehearsing, is in the suburb in 1993. The second one is at the Ministry of Culture, at the Palais Royal, you know, this beautiful garden of the Palais Royal. And the third one, we go from the back of Notre-Dame, the square Île-de-France, you know, where you have the island. And we will go through the Île-Saint-Louis, the island of Saint-Louis, then go to Place Baudouillet and where you will have and you will meet him an orchestral director named Etienne Jarrier who's 24 and he has created an orchestra of young amazing musicians and activists we got the authorization very late in Paris but it was difficult because the public space the mayor, the department, the police is very, they have to control everything.
13:31David Lan:And so when all of a sudden you have to tell them at which minutes the animals are going to cross, it's very difficult to say exactly, but we try to be precise. But it happens that the 21st of June, we have two events and it's Fête de la Musique. And it's a feast that has been created by Jack Long like 30 or 40 years ago. and everyone is allowed to go with this instrument and to celebrate music. So it will be complete chaos. You will have like two millions of people in the streets.
14:10Amir Nizar Zuabi:You're listening to In The Studio, The Herds, from the BBC World Service.
14:20David Lan:Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead To Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Birch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Paris.
14:53David Lan:So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.
15:04Amir Nizar Zuabi:It's midsummer day and Paris parties away in sweltering heat. In the quiet shade of trees and yew hedges, in a small park behind Notre Dame Cathedral, the cardboard animals and their human companions shelter from the sun before embarking on their journey through the city.
15:29Amir Nizar Zuabi:Then comes Nizal's call to action.
15:35The herd hears a distant orchestra
15:38Amir Nizar Zuabi:and makes its way through the crowded Marais streets towards Place Baudouillet. Here they find l 'Orchestre du Nouveau Monde playing on the steps over the Académie du Climat to a large audience.
Read the full transcript
15:56Amir Nizar Zuabi:Lured by the sound, the curious animals push their way through the audience and, startled by what they find, confront the players, who, despite the provocation, continue to play. Increasingly baffled and alienated, the herd decides to depart and melts away into the side streets of Paris.
16:33Amir Nizar Zuabi:I caught up with Tracy Seward, one of the producers of the project.
16:37David Lan:One of the things is how life-changing it can be for the participants and the people who make the show, the director, the producers, all of our stage crew it's really really life changing it's extraordinary My name is Catherine Abigail Ward and I'm an actor and a puppeteer from Australia living in London and I'm a member of the Emerging Company and we are primarily travelling with the team from Spain to the Arctic Circle powering the puppets learning to puppeteer getting an education in public art and puppetry and training others in every city as we go as well What draws me to the herds is a strong and passionate love for the intersection between activism, public art and performance.
17:26David Lan:It's what makes it unique. What makes the herds function and have energy is that blend of people, activism, action and art.
17:38Amir Nizar Zuabi:My name is Peter, a hot and tired zebra operator who lives locally.
17:44David Lan:I'm from Cornwall in England but I've lived here for many many years and through an interest in puppet making I've got involved with the herds and it's been a fantastic project I'm the head of a zebra the head and neck of a zebra and the brain of the zebra as well of course My name is Eva Duisman I'm from the Netherlands I was animating the hind legs of a gorilla I'm a very small girl and this has been really fun to channel this big, big, big, strong gorilla. So this has been a very powerful week for me. And it has been such an amazing collaboration with everybody. It feels like there was so much togetherness in this experience.
18:35Amir Nizar Zuabi:The herd has arrived in London. It's early dawn on a deserted tower bridge and the puppet animals stampede across towards a group of children who eagerly welcome them to the city.
19:03Amir Nizar Zuabi:Later, in the afternoon, on a very hot day in central London, the puppet animals begin a journey through Soho and Covent Garden. Seemingly all of London has come out to see them and the narrow streets throng with people grasping small children and pointing phones over the heads of people in front of them.
19:43Amir Nizar Zuabi:The herd has now found its way to the Royal Opera House. It pauses as tenor Ryan Vaughan Davies sings them an aria from Mozart's The Magic Flute from the Balcony.
20:01Amir Nizar Zuabi:But the herd can sing too.
20:12Amir Nizar Zuabi:After the exertions of every performance, as the puppets are put into their travelling boxes and loaded onto trucks, the exhausted performers come together, away from the crowds, form a huge shoulder-to-shoulder circle and become a single voice.
20:32David Lan:I am Billy Langer. we've been using humming as a way in which to balance the body and all the energies that are around us. And humming has just been amazing because to some degree it doesn't need words. It's just literally voice coming out of the body. And at some point we do find a particular frequency that we are all on and a harmony and a melody begins to happen. And I think that is one thing that then begins to connect us. and it's beautiful to see people who are not singers actually releasing this beautiful sound.
21:40Amir Nizar Zuabi:It's the opening of the 2025 Manchester International Festival. And outside the city's National Football Museum in Cathedral Gardens, the Manchester Camerata is playing to a large audience. Barely perceptibly, the herd appears from behind the cathedral. They move with purpose towards the orchestra and again curiosity turns to panic. As they stampede into the orchestra arranged on the gently sloping ground, the musicians scatter, some still playing, and music stands and instruments fly through the air. The herd makes a tour around the shocked audience and runs off into the city, seeking the safety of their cases and trucks.
22:32Amir Nizar Zuabi:I caught up with Fraser Orford, the general manager of the Herds Project.
22:37David Lan:I look after the hiring and the pulling together of the team. I'm very heavily involved in the logistics of moving the show across Central and Western Africa into Europe and the UK and ultimately into Scandinavia in a couple of weeks' time. And that goes from everything, from visas to flights and travel and coaches. and all means of transport, ferries. Yeah, we've sort of used every means of transport we possibly could on this project. So yeah, so there's puppet transport, so animal transport and human transport is the way we divide it up. And then we've sort of had these three wonderful drivers that have been with us from the moment we arrived in Spain, sort of the moment we left Morocco and arrived in Spain.
23:27David Lan:They joined us and they will be with us right until we finish in four weeks' time.
23:32Amir Nizar Zuabi:The herd continued their journey north to Scandinavia. Their enforced migration was not always one of fear and conflict. Catherine Abigail Ward, one of the puppeteers we met in Paris, sent this from Denmark.
23:49David Lan:It's about 10.30pm tonight and I'm in the gardens of the Naturhistorisk Museum in Aarhus, Denmark. And tonight the people of the city, they've brought out their tents and they're sleeping overnight here. and every half hour or so between 6pm and midnight, we've been bringing out different animals and having different interactions and stories among the crowds. There's a lot of families here, and it's a wonderful, soft, blue twilight. It's certainly been very challenging tonight, keeping the puppets alive and breathing over such a long period of time, and our bodies are very, very sore. But the interactions we've been having here are incredibly touching.
24:31David Lan:We've had people who've brought their own puppets that they've made out to meet the herds. And there's a lot of kids running around, running between the animals. And the softness and the quietness of the night and the music is just the most beautiful change of pace to some of our other events, which are much bigger and louder and full of chaos. This one really feels like an exploration, like the animals are finding a sanctuary or a safe place to rest.
25:01Amir Nizar Zuabi:But the herd's journey is not over yet. Impelled to go on to their Arctic destination, they finally arrive on a cold and windy glacier in northern Norway after their epic 20 ,000-kilometre journey from the sweltering heat of equatorial Africa. Nizar sent a voicemail from the Arctic Circle. We're standing on top of a glacier in Norway. a big
25:30David Lan:of cardboard puppets on a glacier they have run all the way from the Congo Basin and arrived to basically a melting cap and had to stop because that's where the world ends in many ways it's quite emotional being here because I think the one thing that becomes very visible when you're standing in this place and you hear the stories about how 20 years ago the glacier would go all the way to the other side, is that the effects of climate change are real and they're happening. And kind of thinking back at the time in the Congo where also a lot of the effects are very visible and you understand that there's damage done everywhere.
26:26David Lan:but these places make it very visible very dramatic
26:34David Lan:so that's why it's the end for the animals and yeah it's emotional it's kind of there's a sense of victory but also a sense of sadness that we're even considering to take puppet animals up a glacier to kind of visualize how dramatic this is. And yeah, now the clouds are starting to roll in, so we need to start packing fast before rain comes. So yeah, it's one of these ridiculous things that you do and you will look back at many years and go, I once took a herd of wild African animals up a glacier. So it's a mixture of feelings, but also relief that we've done it. We managed to do it.
27:34Amir Nizar Zuabi:But perhaps the Herds' long journey is not over. There's still work to be done.
27:43Amir Nizar Zuabi:In the studio, The Herds was presented and produced by Roger James Elsgood. Location sound and post-production was by Giovanni Sipiano and Kling Clang Clong & Co and Miko Studios Berlin created the music. It was an art and adventure audio production for the BBC World Service.
28:14David Lan:Hello, Greg Jenner here. I'm the host of You're Dead to Me, the BBC comedy show that takes history seriously. Every episode, I pair up a top historian with a fantastic comedian, and we have a lovely, funny, fascinating chat about a different subject from world history. And in this new series, we're beginning with an epic voyage through the story of Homer, the Iliad, and the Odyssey. And that's with Kyle Smith-Bino joining us. And then we'll be learning about Francis Galton and the racist, discredited pseudoscience of eugenics with Desiree Burch. We'll meet many medieval saints in their bone boxes with Rachel Parrott.
28:47David Lan:So if that sounds like your sort of thing, listen to You're Dead to Me wherever you get your podcasts. Thank you. Bye.
From the publisher
A vast herd of life-size puppet animals travel from the Congo Basin to the Arctic Circle, to flee the effects of climate change. Following their internationally successful project, The Walk with Little Amal, in which a 13-foot puppet visited 17 countries, drawing attention to the vast numbers of children fleeing war, violence, and persecution, David Lan, previously the artistic director of the Young Vic and Amir Nizar Zuabi the celebrated Palestine theatre director, have created a new global project, The Herds. Concerned with raising awareness of climate change, it is inspired by the notion that animals are the first to sense environmental disaster and respond alarmingly. The animals, designed in Cape Town by the Ukwanda Puppet Collective and replicated by partners along the route, reflect the countries through which they passed. This episode of The Documentary, comes to you from In the Studio, exploring the processes of the world’s most creative people.
