About Katkatha
What started in 1998 as a small but very enthusiastic group of puppeteers was registered as the Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust in 2006. Serving these 12 years the organization has acquired 14 major productions which have toured in India and abroad.
At the heart of Katkatha remains one vision- to promote puppet theatre by exploring its various forms, pushing its boundaries and by popularizing it among audiences and bringing more people into this art form.  To fulfill this vision Katkatha has had to play many roles. The most visible role is that of a travelling Puppet Theatre which performs all over the country and world.

Our puppets range from 3 inch to 25 feet! Our shows have dance, live actions, masks, music, martial arts, choreography, animation, live feed and of course puppets and objects. We have collaborated with a wide range of artists from classical dancers and musicians to animators, film makers and  theatre-wallahs, designers and writers. Our less public but equally relentless endeavor is to train new puppeteers and popularize puppetry among young people and children. Our teacher training program encourages teachers to replace ‘chalk and talk’ methods to using puppets to teach science, Social Studies, math etc in classes.

Our puppet intensive summer / winter training, apprenticeship and internship programs are ways to bring new people within the folds of puppetry. We hold regular puppetry workshops for children in the summer vacations and also during the school year once a week. We also offer resources to puppet enthusiast like the monthly puppet JAMs. The Katkatha newsletter which has articles, and updates on recent activities and a lot of photos. The new Katkatha studio in Badarpur also houses a reading and video library .  Katkatha has its own facebook page which offers links to videos of world puppetry.

Our least known and most prolific dimension is our projects. We undertake various projects with other artists or NGOs and institutions to use puppetry in different ways. The projects have varied from working as Juvenile Remand Homes to women in Kashmir to the Tsunami hit village in Tamil Nadu, HIV/AIDS awareness programmes. These projects explore the therapeutic and psychological aspects of puppetry. In Katkatha, we believe that the Arts move people, and what moves people can change them.

Today as a trust, Katkatha works in 6 main areas

1. Creation of new art work, performances, design and aesthetic using the puppet at its core and by collaborating with other arts and artist.
2. Using puppets for Social communication and behavioral change especially in the field of gender, HIV/AIDS and adolescence.
3. Training future professional puppeteers, training field workers in the area of community development and social communication, training school teachers in alternative teaching methods instead of ‘chalk and talk’, introducing puppet theatre and creative thinking to young people.
4. Puppet therapy in the specialized field of special education and working with conflict resolution.
5. Building communication between puppeteers within India and with the international puppetry community.
6. Research in the field of new techniques of puppetry (construction and manipulation) and the philosophy of puppets.

Lastly while we are trying to feel a void in means the children’s entertainment in India we are equally committed to the adult audience. Our goal is to convert adults to become avid viewers of puppetry and regard it as a form of serious cinema or the actors’ theatre.
The doors of Katkatha are open to all. Please watch our shows on internet or live whenever you can. Please visit us at our ‘Farm Studios’ in Badarpur or subscribe to our free newsletter. Join our JAMS or workshop or just volunteer with us.