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Young World
Without boundaries
V.R.Devika
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A workshop on puppetry, conducted in Chennai recently, was innovative and entertaining.
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Students of Balalok school...
"In a city called Sattampatti there was noise...'' the story began. Students of Balalok school decided to tell the story in verse form before the shadow puppet show. "The king was pleased with the noise and encouraged his subjects to make noise all the time. And for the prince's birthday, he ordered everyone to make the biggest noise possible at the stroke of midnight. One woman who also liked the noise decided that she would keep quiet so that she could hear the greatest noise for herself. She confessed about her plan to her neighbour. The news spread. Everyone who heard this decided that they too wanted to hear the biggest noise. At the stroke of midnight, there was silence and the prince liked it. He changed the name of the city to Amaidipuram (peaceful place). This story emerged out of a workshop at Dakshinachitra, Chennai — a curtain raiser to the International Puppetry Festival being held at Dakshinachitra, between March 1 and 10. The show hosted for the students was on February 22. Four groups — The Ellen Sharma School, Padma Sheshadri Bal Bhavan, K.K.Nagar and T.Nagar and Balalok qualified for the finals. While Balalok won special commendation for story and presentation, Padma Seshadri School, T.Nagar won special mention for the props behind the glove puppets and Ellen Sharma School for the innovative stage they rigged up. Padma Seshadri Bal Bhavan, T.Nagar won special commendation for the shadow puppets they created with throw away materials. Their story of a little dolphin also received special mention.
The Young Friends of Dakshinachitra put up a show of Shadow puppetry on February 23. Aged between eight and 12, participants came up with stories and were told folktales. The group chose a story from Karnataka called "Govina Haadu'' (The song of the cow). The story is about Punyakoti the truthful cow. The students did the music, narration and worked on the puppets with help from traditional puppeteer Mohan Raj and puppet researcher Banumati.
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