Moved to Life began with a concern for traditional puppetry. Chinese puppetry spread overseas with the migration of Chinese communities and took root in Malaysia, yet it has gradually faced a growing rupture in transmission. Once a tradition leaves its place of origin, how can a craft continue in a new environment and give rise to new possibilities?

From this starting point, our exploration extends to the artists who preserve and animate the spirit of these traditions through their hands. Those who preserve are preserving the spirit of tradition; those who animate are bringing the puppets to life with their hands. With the changing times, traditional crafts can sometimes appear to be gradually fading from contemporary life. This symposium therefore invites us to consider: when tradition enters different places, generations, and cultural contexts, how can we remain connected to its roots while allowing it to grow in new environments? And in this process, what kind of dialogue can unfold between inheritance and innovation?

From shadow puppetry to the many other forms of puppet theatre, these precious forms of intangible cultural heritage are, for many traditional puppeteers, far more than technical skills. Instead, they have become deeply intertwined with their lives and personal journeys.

The movement of a puppet is not simply a display of technical skill but an act of Moved to Life—a process through which puppeteers bring their experiences, emotions, and memories into the puppet, allowing them to emerge through performance. There exists an ineffable bond between puppet and puppeteer: the puppet becomes an extension of the puppeteer's life, while the act of puppeteering becomes a way for the puppeteer to find meaning, connection, and a sense of belonging.

Unlike typical events centred primarily on watching performances, this symposium brings artists who have long worked behind the scenes onto the stage and share their own journeys—how they began on this journey, the solitude and challenges they encountered along the way, and the reasons they remained steadfast in preserving and passing on their craft despite the passage of time. Through these stories and dialogues, the symposium seeks to bring the voices and experiences of those who have long remained behind the scenes back into the light, allowing audiences to glimpse the artists’ life journeys, the challenges they have faced, and the dedication and commitment that have sustained these traditions.

Positioned as an international performing arts symposium, Moved to Life posits that performance itself is a way of producing knowledge and opening up new forms of discourse. It also embraces the spirit of the word symposium—a gathering for shared dialogue—through in-depth post-performance exchanges that allow artists, audiences, and researchers to meet on equal ground, moving beyond the one-way transmission of knowledge towards a more open and reciprocal dialogue.

Over two days, the symposium centres on two themes: Roots and Resonance and Local Revival and Global Vision. Through performances, panel discussions, artist dialogues, workshops, and documentary screenings, the symposium creates a cross-cultural and intergenerational platform for exchange, dialogue, and new possibilities in puppetry.

• A cross-cultural showcase bringing together four forms of puppetry on stage: shadow puppetry, string puppetry, iron-rod puppetry, and hand puppetry.
• A tribute to veteran puppeteers, offering audiences an opportunity to hear them share their lifelong journeys with puppetry.
• The first major international gathering of Teochew iron-rod puppeteers from across Asia, featuring performances and traditional “puppet battle” scenes.
• Documentary screenings and workshops led by international master puppeteers.
• Joint performances and exchanges featuring both traditional and contemporary puppeteers.

Moved to Life is concerned not only with how a tradition can be preserved but also with how that tradition remains a living form of culture as it continues to be performed, remembered, and reimagined.

Through this symposium, we hope to bring visibility to the hands and spirits that have long remained behind the scenes, to create encounters between puppeteers across regions and generations, and to allow tradition to do more than simply survive but continue to grow through new exchanges and creative endeavours. Tradition has never been a static legacy. It lives in the hands of the puppeteer, in every movement of the puppet, in every performance on stage, and in the conversations that continue to unfold between people.

This encounter begins with the first gathering of Teochew iron-rod puppeteers. With Moved to Life as our starting point, we look back towards the roots of Asian puppetry while also turning towards its future that has yet to be written. We cordially invite you to enter the world of puppetry, to witness how a pair of hands can bring a puppet to life, and to consider together: When tradition is brought to life again, where might it move next?

Tradition and contemporary practice are often framed as opposites. For Moved to Life, an international symposium exploring tradition and reinvention in Asian puppet theatre, we wanted to challenge this separation and explore what happens when one form becomes another.

The key visual brings these worlds together through two colour systems. Red evokes traditional puppetry, including humans, animals, and spirits, while blue draws inspiration from contemporary object theatre, where anything from a torchlight to a drop of liquid can enter the performance, not necessarily transformed into a puppet, but activated as an object in its own right. Within each system, forms continuously shift, merge and evolve, echoing the fluid gestures of a puppeteer bringing different characters to life.

Where the two systems meet, new possibilities emerge. Unrelated forms begin to suggest connections, characters, and stories in the space between them. The colours overlap to create a third colour, belonging fully to neither system but emerging from both.

The title itself follows the same principle. Its forms bend, shift, and transform at their joints, resisting any single, fixed interpretation. Like a puppet in the hands of its maker, the visual identity is never static. It exists in a state of transformation, always moving between forms and always being moved to life.