Strings attached
SANGEETA BAROOAH PISHAROTY
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If you think puppets are only for kids, take a look at the traditional puppetry forms, says puppeteer Anurupa Roy.
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A challenge ahead Delhi-based puppeteer Anurupa Roy.
Anurupa Roy was just 20 when she initiated Kat-Katha, a puppet-art trust, a decade ago in New Delhi with a few school and college friends.
The Sardar Patel Vidyalaya alumnus started puppetry in school and then got “hooked”. But the idea behind Kat-Katha was not to remain hooked to a childhood memory, like preserving one’s dolls for ever. It was rather to extend its limits. To battle the general impression of puppetry as only a means of kids’ entertainment.
So, armed with degrees in puppetry from the University of Stockholm and the School of Traditional Glove Puppetry, Naples, Anurupa uses puppet theatre as another performing art.
She addresses issues like HIV/AIDS, women in a conflict situation, reproductive health of adolescent village girls, livelihood building for tsunami victims, training nursery teachers to use puppetry in education, etc. Also, this post-graduate from Lady Sriram College has been working with other performing arts.
Excerpts from a chat with Anurupa just before she left for the Czech Republic to attend a meet of UNIMA, the international body of puppeteers recognised by UNESCO, and MATERINKA Festival of Puppetry in Liberec:
We often look at puppetry as kids’ entertainment.
Actually, one only needs to look at our traditional forms of puppetry. It was always meant for the entire community and served to initiate the young into our oral traditions as well as entertain the adults. Built into these acts were the vidhushaks (also puppet characters) who satired the politics and society of the time. Puppet performances can be designed “only for children” and “strictly for adults” but usually, puppets offer something to everyone. That is the nature of the media. It is very symbolic, allegorical and suggestive.
What is Kat-katha’s role in changing this mindset?
Kat-Katha has been performing shows for entertainment with a strong social message or satire, and also using puppetry in development projects.
Also, we have been trying to fight the typical mindset that it is children’s entertainment and hence “non-serious”, “of poor entertainment value” or “has unimportant content”.
Children’s theatre should not be any of the above and neither is puppet theatre. Some of our long-term projects involve training people to use puppetry as a vehicle of stating their individual protests.
Worldwide, there seems to be an attempt to revive puppetry. How do you look at it vis-À-vis Indian pupeteers?
This is a complex issue. Revival means re-vitalising old forms. In puppetry, a lot more than that is happening. In many places in the world, puppetry is considered “high arts” and is a part of the mainstream. A lot of debate and study on puppetry happens as part of a “movement to revive the arts”.
In India, the traditional puppeteers are continuing, some successfully, some not. Many are re-packaging their performances to suit the existing market. It has not been a perfect demand-supply curve.
For instance, there is a fantastic Tol Bomallatam performer from Tamil Nadu called L. Rajappa whom nobody knows in Delhi. Audiences lack such exposure because the forums for watching such art are shrinking everyday.
Yet, traditional puppeteers like Puran Bhatt from Delhi travel around the world performing and conducting workshops for young European puppeteers.
Non-traditional puppeteers like me are trained in the West but our sensibilities are mainly Indian. We have also had access to new technology.
We are still trying to find our own style and space somewhere between the “traditional space” and the “European influences” and our own identities.
Your troupe has performed outside India. How has the approach been there?
Mostly, outsiders expect a glimpse of our culture, our stories, etc. but there is a pitfall here. Much of the perceived “Indianness” can sometimes be very “exotic”. Yes we have a rich culture and heritage, but we are also living in the 21st Century and our lives, culture, concerns and history are more complex than “dancing girls, snakes and exotica”. That expectation from an Indian performing company is sometimes irritating. Fortunately, that is changing fast.
Where can one learn puppetry in India?
The only way to train here is to work with existing puppeteers or teach oneself or join the short workshops. Essentially, one is on one’s own as I was for a long time!!
You have worked with performing arts like Bharatanatyam and also with the art of story-telling. What are the possibilities?
We have also worked with animation, Orissi, Chauu, etc., simply because such collaborations enrich the art form. Puppetry has within it art forms like sculpture, choreography and theatre. Collaborating with other forms enhances these elements and strengthens them.
What is Kat-katha’s next project?
We are working on a new health-based community project but we also have two new productions in mind. But they will take a long time to complete due to paucity of funds.
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