2016 was a special year for us. We turned 18 and we got our own new space to further explore our puppetry encounters. Our space is at the Southern border of Delhi, 12 kilometers from the city centre. The population around is dense and semi urban.
2016 was a special year for us. We turned 18 and we got our own new space to further explore our puppetry encounters. Our space is at the Southern border of Delhi, 12 kilometers from the city centre. The population around is dense and semi urban.
These are the programs the space is currently supporting or planning to support
Mentorship Program -
In December 2017 we kick start our artists mentorship program with the mentoring of young directors from across India by the Director of Helios Theatre in Hamm, Germany, Barbara Kolling. Barbara will mentor 5 young Indian directors in creating 5 new performances using material only.
These are the programs the space is currently supporting or planning to support
Mentorship Program -
In December 2017 we kick start our artists mentorship program with the mentoring of young directors from across India by the Director of Helios Theatre in Hamm, Germany, Barbara Kolling. Barbara will mentor 5 young Indian directors in creating 5 new performances using material only.
Exhibitions
In 2019 Katkatha has curated and created multiple sensorial and interactive exhibitions that hero the puppet.
2019 Shadow Walk commissioned by Serendipity Arts Festival in Goa and curated by Anurupa Roy was a journey through shadow puppetry of ancient traditional leather forms to modern day shadow puppet applications and animation toys. The exhibition included puppets and talks and videos by puppeteers Sadananda and Lakshmanan Pullavar, Gunduraju and S. Chidambara Rao.
In 2022 Katkatha created Mumbai in a Box, a sensorial puppet exhibition for children supported by the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya in Mumbai. The exhibition looked at Mumbai through a labyrinth of stories and history of the cities, a textured walk through the mangroves, interactive peep shows and installations.
Also in 2022 Katkatha collaborated with the Goethe Institute Library in the Infinite Libraries Project, a virtual reality project including a puppet exhibition, shadow puppets in VR, lec-dems by master puppeteers and films on shadow puppetry.
Serendipity Shadow Play Exhibition, Goa
Serendipity Curation Interview
CSMVS - Mumbai in a Box
In 2023 Katkatha was commissioned by the Chatrapati Shivaji Maharaj Vastu Sanghralaya to create a children’s exhibition at the Children’s Museum. Thus was born Mumbai in a Box, a sensocial and experiential exhibition created for children to encounter Mumbai in unusual ways like the textures of the mangroves, the history of Mumbai building through tiles, a crawl through Bhundi Bazaar and Dongri, under the Byculla bridge, a miniature local train ride where the history of Mumbai is a shadow crank on the window .
Enchanted Walk - KNMA
A night in a park created as an immersive experience in Sunder Nursery as a part of KNMA’s Theatre Festival. Focussing on The enchanted walk took the audiences into a wonderland full of insects,exactly as Alice stepped into wonderland following a rabbit Inside this wonderland the audience was sometimes a voyeur, literally peeping into the secret lives of insects, who seem not too different from humans. They experienced the magic of the insect world, encountered folklore and beliefs about insects and sometimes the two worlds collided in a way where the audience and the actors became one. This was a celebration of everything insect, focussing attention on those which we find disgusting , or swat or ignore at best, because they are underfoot, unseen, invisible.
Infinite Libraries Project
PUPPET RESEARCH
Over the years Katkatha has put together an extensive research on traditional puppet forms. This includes interviews with master puppeteers, documentation of visits to the homes and villages of master puppeteers and documentation of excerpts of traditional puppet shows. This information has then been disseminated through lectures and talks over the years. The main idea is to educate the public at large about the nuances of puppetry and expand audiences and create an interest among younger people. Also to bring to focus the work of individual masters of the various traditional forms.
SHADOW PLAY
2019
At the Serendipity Arts Festival. Team Katkatha put together an exhibition of shadow puppets curated by Anurupa Roy at the Serendipity Arts exhibition that brought to the general public narratives from the diverse Ramayanas that exist only in the oral narratives of the puppet forms of India. It also extended to an interactive part which enabled audiences to play with shadow for and technique and explore its scientific aspects.