CONTEMPORARY GROUPS

• Founded in 1991, Aakar, is directed by Puran Bhatt, based in Kathputli Colony, Shadipur Depot, Delhi.  The group has performed in schools, at the Literacy Mission, Ministry of Environment and at Pragati Maidan. It has presented programmes for television. Using traditional rod, string and shadow puppets, Aakar also presents themes which deal with social awareness issues, such as HIV/AIDS, family planning and programmes for mentally challenged children through traditional storytelling. Puran Bhatt is a traditional kathputli puppeteer, a master of manipulation and puppet maker. Puran’s contemporary puppet production, Carvaan, explores in its theme the legendary history of the kathputli performers. Puran incorporates acting and puppetry techniques, such as black theatre and mask drama, into this new production, techniques learned through collaboration with puppeteers Dadi Pudumjee. Over the past 20year, Puran has travelled to and worked in Europe and North America as part of the 1980s series of Festivals of India held in various world capitals.  He was also an artist-participant in the “Silk Route” exhibition held at Washington, D.C.’s Smithsonian. Puran has held kathputli puppet-making and manipulation workshops in Delhi, Rajasthan and abroad.
  
  
• Bangaputul is working to revive the dying art of puppetry at Kolkata. The group gees to all sections of society, especially the lower strata, to develop and propagate government policies, development of child personality and general awareness programme among the people. Their repertoire includes: Bhalobasar Bagan, Vishalyakarani, Bendaboner Bau, etc.

• Bharatiya Lok Kala Mandal founded by Devilal Samar in Udaipur, has its own repertory, museum, workshop, training programme, etc. They have regular ticketed shows. The group has travelled all over the country and abroad. and produced a large number of plays using both rod and string puppets.

• Brigitte Revelli, a French sculpture and Kathakali dancer, started a puppet group at Trissur, Kerala. Her puppets look like Kathakali dancer and are manipulated by Bunraku technique. Her only play is Maharadhi in Kathakali style.

• Burdwan Puppet Theatre and Cultural Centre (BPTCC) is a small organisation dedicated to the ancient medium of puppetry in its modern form. BPTCC was formed in 1988 in Burdwan, 90 km from Kolkata, by a group of artists, teachers, school and college students. Halde Jhunti Morogti and Dadur Dastana are puppet plays adapted from Russian folk tales, while Jhagra Bibad Bandha is a musical sketch. Other plays have been based on Indian folk tales and stories. Plays have also been developed around social concerns, such as the environment, conservation of forests and wild life, literacy and health programmes, the welfare of rural women and issues relating to communal harmony. The group has attended workshops and participated in festivals. Director Swapan Roy has worked as a freelance commercial artist. He has been the director of 10 plays produced by BPTCC since 1988. Swapan has conducted a number of workshops on traditional and modern puppetry and masks with school and street children as well as basti dwellers.

• Delhi Puppet Theatre is a small group of dedicated puppeteers. The group makes professional puppets, provides trained puppeteers to conduct workshops and works on different projects on puppetry besides the performances for children.

• Geyon Thetar, established in West Bengal in 1997, comprises 10 members, including 4-5 musicians. They make shadow puppets from cardboard, colour papers and waste materials. Their productions are: Tenara Asitechhen, Circus, Traffic, Dancer, etc., in Bengali. To entertain the children, they use animal puppets as characters and perform in schools. The director Kamalendu Ghosh had attended a British puppetry workshop and later learnt from Suresh Dutta and Govinda Naskar, a traditional rod puppeteer. He arranged shadow puppet workshops to spread education, awareness, values and mainly for developing creativity.

• Kalsootree is the puppetry and children’s theatre wing of Sahitya Kala Mandal, Mumbai. It has presented numerous puppet shows from 1990 onwards and is acclaimed as one of the foremost groups in Maharashtra. Its productions, in Marathi and Hindi, are: Tenguchan-Darumachan, Makda, Makda Hupp, Bandar Tere Peechhay Kalander, Chamatkaar Hokar Rahega, Vaatevartee Kaachaa Ga, etc. The group leader Meena Naik is a renowned puppeteer, director and successful actress in theatre, TV and film. She has received training in India and abroad, a national scholar, Japan Foundation Fellow and Senior Fellow of government of India. An active social worker, she has worked in the fields of language development, primary education for the handicapped and slow learners, sex workers, preventive medicine and child rights through puppetry. She represented India in France, Czechoslovakia, Japan, UK and Sri Lanka.

• Kat-Katha is a Delhi-based group of storytellers and puppeteers, founded in 1997 under the aegis of the Foundation for Universal Responsibility of HH the Dalai Lama. Kat-Katha performs regularly at schools, colleges, and festivals. The group has travelled to other many cities in India, performing and offering puppetry workshops. Its workshops focus both on training puppeteers as well as using puppetry for education and the spreading of social messages like women’s empowerment, notions of peace and tolerance, the importance of education and concerns about reproductive health. Director Anurupa Roy began her involvement in puppetry as a student. She has worked with and trained under Ranjana Pandey and Dadi D. Pudumjee. She was student of puppetry at Dramatiska Institutet, Department of Puppetry, at the University of Stockholm, Sweden, and at the Scoula Della Guaratelle in Naples, Italy. She directed the plays Flowering Tree, Half a Kingdom, Almost Twelfth Night, as well as collaborations with the Bharatnatyam dancer Geeta Chandran in Her Voice and Suraksha with Smita Bharati.
  
  
• Karai Raman Creations is the only traditional Bommalattam group in Pondicherry under K.Kesavaswamy, a schoolteacher, working in this field from 1984 and an awardee of CCRT. Their repertoire covers government programmes, adult education, illiteracy, untouchability, small savings, environmental sanitation and family planning, apart from epics and Purana stories. The 16-member troupe performs regularly in TV and participates in temple festivals, government exhibitions, etc.