Yaya Coulibaly

Yaya Coulibaly (born in 1959) is a Malian puppet designer, puppeteer and storyteller from Mali.

Early life Born into a family of puppeteers, with roots in the Bambara, he began his initiation in the puppet and masquerade figures at the age of ten as an apprentice to his father. Later he studied art at the Institut National des Arts de Bamako, and puppet theatre at the Ecole Nationale Supérieure des Arts de la Marionnette in Charleville-Mézières, France.

Career In 1980 he formed his own puppet company, the Sogolon Puppet Troupe, and has since become the leading custodian of the Bambara puppetry tradition, the oldest and richest of Africa's surviving puppetry traditions. Coulibaly is the custodian of a vast collection of puppets, many of which have come down to him through his family. Speaking of his passion, Coulibaly said: A selection of this puppetry collection was exhibited in Germany, South Africa and USA.