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Anurupa's Page |
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This has been such a busy year that we almost forgot the newsletter!! No, that’s not entirely true. This has been a year of a lot of “Re-s” . Re location, Re thinking and Re organising for the Katkatha team and though the newsletter has never been far from our minds but the other things just waylaid us a bit. |
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Relocation |
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| The Internship Program which we have run informally since 2008 is now being formally announced in this newsletter. The internship enables puppet enthusiasts to shadow the work of the Katkatha team or undertake their own puppet projects under the guidance and support of the Katkatha team. Lastly, we hope the space will enable us to invite children and adults for Puppet Exposures like picnics, carnivals, storytelling sessions and many interactive programs. The first of these is the “Food on my plate” picnic we are offering to children. This is a half day excursion to the farm which will engage them in a series of puppet shows, games and activities which focus on understanding where their food comes from and ways of living that are sustainable, healthy and responsible towards our natural resources. |
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Rethinking |
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At Katkatha we have also been rethinking our goals. We realize that we are a rarity in some ways along with a few other puppet theatre groups. Firstly, we do this full time, that is most of our members have jobs that relate to puppet theatre thus making puppetry their mainstay. Secondly, we work in a group and not as solo artists. This means that our repertoire always needs a close knit team who has varied skills. Lastly, we wear many caps as a group namely performers, workshop conductors, trainers, mass communicators, researchers to name a few. Thus again we keep feeling a need for more people in the team. |
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| Also puppet theatre is a field that has too many clichés attached to it as far as audiences are concerned. And very few young people consider this as a career option.We realize this is probably because of the lack of exposure for the general public. Thus this year we tried to find solutions which are in the nature of three small initiatives. | ||||
1. Youth Focus |
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| This is a conscious outreach to the youth in the country. We are trying to expose young people to puppet theatre through puppet workshops at colleges and at universities, as a part of Mass Communication and Theatre courses. We are collaborating with NGOs to interact with youth in urban slums or initiate voluntary programs where young people learn to use puppet theatre to present shows at public places. The former courses have been with Dept Communication Extension at Lady Irwin College and National School of Drama’s 3 month intensive course in Bangalore. The latter with Safdar Manch organized by STEP(Standing Together to Enable Peace) and with Aga Khan Foundation’s Youth Group projects at the Nizamuddin Basti in New Delhi. The young people who have been exposed to puppetry through these projects are still using puppets in some ways. For eg the performance created by the students at lady Irwin College has performed at several public spaces and at several events. Three of the NSD Bangalore students are using puppets in their other performances. The Nizamuddin Basti youngsters still visit the KK studio for workshops and JAMs and the show created by the youth at Safdar Manch has done 5 street performances at CP, Nehru place market, Dilli Haat, DU and is still counting……..We hope these workshops will become more numerous next year and that we can start a puppet club for young people soon |
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2. Street performances |
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| Since the youth group initiatives are all geared up to building a puppet community we are trying to create opportunities for the young puppeteers to perform as much as possible. It is only once they have faced an audience that they can decide whether they like the medium and want to continue to work with it. It is only the audiences reaction that can convince them to the true power of puppets. Secondly, this works as a wonderful way of discovering new ways of using puppets on the street. Puppets are rarely used in street plays anyway but when they are it is mostly in the context of a story or script. The Safdar Manch tried an interesting street performance tactic. They invented 4 puppet-human characters (actors wearing giant masks)that would engage the public. Their mandate was to take the audience back to childhood and then ask them to sign a campaign to reclaim public spaces like parks in Delhi for “playing” .The 4 characters would only initiate a series of activities. For eg the Little Girl character would ask the public to play traditional childhood games like “pithu”, “stapu” and “rassa” with her. Amazingly this experiment was a huge success. We had many young people, middle aged women, old men and general passersby join in with great gusto and then willingly sign our signature campaign. Another character “the cheez-walla” or the “Thing-man”, a thing of the past in Delhi but used to be seen in my childhood armed with a tray full of Phantom candy cigarettes(I know, politically incorrect but deliciously sugary), churan in a pipe( and in many other forms) , dubiously coloured chewing gum among many things. Our thing man was selling these objects for paise 25, which does not exist and so those who could not pay in cash had to pay by telling a story of sharing a childhood memory. The third character was a photographer with a giant Polaroid camera who would take photos but the image would not be the person photographed but a random child’s drawing. |
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3. Sustained Trainings |
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| A logical next step from the Youth Exposures and street Performances organized by them and for them are the more sustained trainings. This year in June Katkatha started it’s first Foundation Course in Puppetry for adults and the next one is scheduled for December. To keep the workshop participants in practice and in touch we are now doing monthly puppet JAMs at the KK studio in Badarpur. The JAMs are open to all one day a month, usually a Sunday. Each JAM has one focus like a technique or a material that the group explores together. Sometimes the JAMs are lead by other puppeteers. Two of the last JAMs focused on muppets (lead by Manish Sachdev) and Glove puppets by Frida Leon. JAMs last about 4 hours and include both technique and improvisations using technique. Added to this is the Internship program. Ranging between a month to a year we are formally inviting proposals from people who would like to shadow the work of a full time puppet theatre company or propose their own puppet program. Since 2008 this program has seen several interns who have worked with KK. Laura Van Dijk from Belgium, a Social Communication student from the University of Brussels, Belgium, Camille Venilluewa (Fine Art student) and Eric Fink(Theatre student) from UCLA, America , Laura Casmiri from UK ,Christopher Orleans from Mexico and Namrata Kaushal, Dept of Communication Extension, Lady Irwin College have all been our interns in the last 3 years. |
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Re organising |
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Administrator |
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I would like to introduce our new administrator ms Aton Mungleng. She will be in-charge of all correspondences, the updating of the new website calendar, keeping all of you posted about events on Facebook, monitoring projects and sending information about shows/workshops to press, public and clients. |
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New Website |
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We now have our new website which is ready to be updated. This was long overdue (since 2006 as a matter of fact). We have tried to organize this website a little better with systematic profiles of our core team, our performances and projects. It is also more interactive with a feedback mechanism via Twitter and Facebook. It has a calendar that will be regularly updated as people can follow our activities on a weekly basis. The quarterly newsletter and yearly report of all Katkatha activities will also be updated on this website. Our web address still remains www.katkatha.org |
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Facebook presence |
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Our Fb page has been active for the last few months. We have over 300 FB Friends of Katkatha and hope many more will join in. all the announcements of shows, workshops and most importantly JAMs are regularly updates of our FB profile. Additionally we add a monthly YOUTUBE link related to puppet traditions from around the world. This is to keep all puppet enthusiasts informed about puppet traditions, new techniques and shows. |
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Reorganized Newsletter |
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| Our Newsletter has been a great way of keeping people updated about the work we do. We are adding two new features to it. Firstly, we will have an “Announcements” section which will have announcements of KK workshops, shows and programs and also of all puppet groups who would like to announce their own shows, workshops or features. Secondly, we are adding a section called “Features for Teachers”. These will include special notes for teachers, tips on using puppets in the classroom, puppet making techniques and pictures. | ||||
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