Date:20/02/2006 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2006/02/20/stories/2006022015310600.htm

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Art form vanishing for lack of patronage

Vani Doraisamy

Eight-day long workshop on shadow puppetry and theatre organised

Shadow puppetry is a complete art form as it involves music, dramatics, painting and body language It is so intricate that one person ends up manipulating upto 12 puppets at the same time

AT FINGER TIPS: An artist gives a demonstration of shadow puppetry at a workshop organised by Folklore Resources and Research Centre and Lalit Kala Akademi in Chennai on Sunday. — Photo:S. R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: He manipulates Rama and Ravana with just a twist of his little finger. But Murugan Rao's lined face shows no sign of enjoying the power of control.

If anything, it speaks a tale of misery, destitution, depravation and loss of livelihood. A tale that carries as much resonance as the myths and legends that form the stuff of shadow puppetry, a vanishing art form that still survives in forgotten rural boroughs of Madurai, Theni, Tirunelveli, Nagercoil and Coimbatore districts. Murugan Rao and a few other fellow artists are special invitees at the eight-day long workshop on shadow puppetry and theatre jointly being organised by the Folklore Resources and Research Centre (FRRC), Palayamkottai and Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Centre in Chennai.

N. Muthusamy, founder of Koothu-p-pattarai, the theatre troupe, inaugurated the workshop, which aims to bring contemporary and traditional artists on the same platform, on Sunday.

Not just folk tales, even contemporary discourses such as adult literacy, AIDS awareness, rainwater harvesting, child labour and female foeticide have been incorporated into the repertoire of 48-year Muthulakshmana Rao from Theni.

He is one of the lucky few, for he has been able to convince his four sons and a daughter to take up the art form too.

According to M.Ramasamy, head of the Drama department, Tamil University, Thanjavur, there are a little over 32 semi-nomadic shadow puppetry groups all over the State but none of them has given a public performance for ages. Not only is government encouragement lacking - except for the issue of an indigent artist ID card - even public patronage has dried up.

In the good old times, if a group performed for 10 days during a village festival, they would earn anything between Rs. 600 to 800 a day.

Each goatskin puppet would take ten days to make and were handcrafted by the puppeteers themselves. But even villages don't seem to offer space for the artistes anymore. "Shadow puppetry is a complete art form as it involves music, dramatics, painting and body language. It is so intricate that one person ends up manipulating upto 12 puppets at the same time and giving the voice-over to all of them. Women too were involved as musicians. If only shadow puppetry could be taught to school children by the artists themselves, it would give them a means to a sustainable livelihood as well as status enhancement for a rapidly vanishing folk art,'' says Britto Vincent, director, FRRC.