Obituary: Ncedile Daki, puppet artist who made the war horses

Ncedile Daki, who has died in Cape Town at the age of 26, was a vital part of the team that made the horses which starred in War Horse, one of the most extraordinary puppet shows ever produced.

Daki was born at Cofimvaba in the Eastern Cape on September 1 1990 and attended Isilimela Comprehensive School in Langa, Cape Town.

After he matriculated in 2009, he moved to Masiphumelele (meaning "we will succeed") township near Kommetjie.

He began attending art classes at the local library, where his artistic imagination and talent for making things caught the eye of its founder, Sue Alexander.

She introduced him to the founders of the Handspring Puppet Company, Adrian Kohler and Basil Jones. He joined their factory in Muizenberg in 2010 and began working on the horse puppets they were building for their sensational show.

He started with relatively simple tasks such as bending and binding cane for the horses.

He was an eager and quick learner with an aptitude for innovation. Whatever he was given to do, he looked for ways of doing it differently. He always challenged the established way of doing things, experimenting with new methods of tackling some aspect of puppet-making which he thought would make it easier.

He was never too proud to admit, as he often found himself doing, that the established method might have been more labour intensive but was actually the best way after all.

By the end of his first year he was doing quite complex work, and the war horses being made at the factory in Muizenberg involved all sorts of complications and a bewildering array of parts that had to work in unison.

The spine to which each rib of the horse was attached was made of rolled and welded aluminium. Each rib was a different shape and, when mounted in sequence, described the shape of the body. The ribs were made of soaked cane shaped in a mould made of nails on a board. When dry, they were attached to the spine. Horizontal cane lines were then attached with waxed thread, to firm up the rib structure.

The moving parts were more complicated. A leg required three joints which had to be strong enough to last and light enough to be carried by a puppeteer. Daki excelled in making these joints, for which he developed a set of jigs.

The heads were the most complex of all, with built-in remote-control points for neck and individual ear movement. Daki was involved with all these facets.

War Horse was a huge hit around the world and the horses he helped to build came alive on stages in London, New York, Toronto, Berlin, the Netherlands, Beijing, Shanghai, Tokyo, Johannesburg and Cape Town.

He and 21 other members of the Handspring team were invited by the National Theatre of Britain to see War Horse in London.

When the National Theatre brought it to South Africa for a 10-week run in 2014, he was put in charge of the backstage technical team to ensure that the horses were in perfect working condition for every show.

He attended the opening of a special exhibition in London on the making of War Horse and was given a standing ovation by the audience when introduced on stage along with the rest of the team.

In 2013 Daki toured Europe and India with Janni Younge's production of Ouroboros, which used puppets as a medium of discourse about time and the cycles of life.

Last year he manipulated one of the elephant puppets at an annual Day of Reconciliation puppet show in Barrydale. His ability to transfer love and empathy through himself to the elephant moved the director, Aja Marneweck, to tears.

The work was seen in CNN's Inside Africa documentary, which was broadcast in 212 countries.

In 2010 Daki helped start the Masiphumelele Youth Development Theatre Group, which gave birth to the Ukwanda Puppet and Design Company consisting of himself and three others.

Their first production, Qhawe, a Xhosa fairytale, won a Standard Bank Encore Ovation Award at the National Arts Festival in Grahamstown in 2015.

Last year he was the designer of Ukwanda's giant Slyza Tsotsi pantsula dancing puppet that was a crowd favourite at the Cape Town Carnival.

Daki died after being shot in Masiphumelele when his car was hijacked.

It was to have been announced on the day after he was killed that he had been awarded a six-month sculpture fellowship at Cornell University in the US. He is survived by his parents and five sisters.

1990-2017