Other States - Orissa

New lease of life for puppetry

BHUBANESWAR: For the obscure practitioners of the various dying puppetry traditions of Orissa, Sangeet Natak Akademi (OSNA), the apex body of the nation for performing arts, has mooted a special project for revival.

Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre (EZCC), Kolkata and the Orissa Sangeet Natak Akademi (OSNA) would be its collaborators.

OSNA secretary Manmath Nath Satpathy told The Hindu that the recently concluded State-level puppetry festival proved as a boon for the endangered arts traditions.

“SNA mooted a series of puppetry festivals for the country to document the dying practices and it started with Andhra Pradesh. The four-day putul kala festival in the capital hosted earlier this month in association with OSNA was the second of its series.

The experts who came as observers of the festival were amazed to discover that Orissa was the only State of the nation to have all the four puppetry traditions – rod, shadow, string and glove – alive,” he revealed.

Former SNA secretary and the best known scholar on Indian puppetry Usha Malik, who is an advisor to the Akademi on puppetry matters and headed the delegation of exponents and observers to the festival, has recommended to the SNA to fund a special project for promotion of the puppeteers of Orissa, said the secretary. The Akademi has also advised the OSNA to go ahead with the project, he added. As a prelude to the project, OSNA has taken up a district-wise survey of the puppeteers following which OSNA would prepare a directory of the troupes. They would then be invited to a workshop in Bhubaneswar. Well-known puppetry exponent Puran Bhatt would conduct the workshop; Mr. Satpathy said and added that the thrust would be on use of innovative techniques and interaction among exponents of the four styles.

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