![]() ![]() Japanese Bunraku puppets are an example of this. Other hand or glove puppets are larger and require two puppeteers for each puppet. Punch and Judy puppets are familiar examples. ![]() A hand puppet or glove puppet is controlled by one hand which occupies the interior of the puppet and moves the puppet around. The simplest puppets are finger puppets, which are tiny puppets that fit onto a single finger, and sock puppets, which are formed from a sock and operated by inserting one's hand inside the sock, with the opening and closing of the hand simulating the movement of the puppet's "mouth". They can be extremely complex or very simple in their construction. There are many different varieties of puppets, and they are made of a wide range of materials, depending on their form and intended use. The puppeteer sometimes speaks in the voice of the character of the puppet, while at other times they perform to a recorded soundtrack. Puppeteers use movements from hands and arms to control devices such as rods or strings to move the body, head, limbs, and in some cases the mouth and eyes of the puppet. The script for a puppet production is called a puppet play. Such a performance is also known as a puppet production. Since 1980, several kathputli troupes travel the world over, invited by institutions and festivals.Puppetry is a form of theatre or performance that involves the manipulation of puppets – inanimate objects, often resembling some type of human or animal figure, that are animated or manipulated by a human called a puppeteer. Often accompanied by Bhopa-Bhopi storytellers from the Bhil group who base their own stories, music, and dances on gigantic comic strip-like painted scrolls ( phad or path), the kathputliwallahs‘ most intense period of activity is during the dry season. Many groups of puppeteers crisscross Rajasthan as well as other northern Indian states, particularly since the 1960s “Green Revolution” when an irrigation policy allowed farmers several harvests per year, giving landowning villagers the occasion to give thanks to the gods by celebrating feasts to which they invited troubadours and puppeteers. Today, the vitality of the kathputli ka khel does not seem to be waning. It is a very simple manipulation technique, yet the result is heightened by the fast movements from above and by the number of puppets assembled on the brightly colored cloth puppet stage representing a palace. Traditional kathputli string puppets do not have controls. The dancer puppet, called Anarkali, however, is a more complex puppet, having around six strings. ![]() Two strings, one attached around the puppet’s waist, the other to the top of its head, are connected to a loop that the puppeteer manipulates directly between his fingers or lifts to make the puppets dance. Since most of the kathputli do not have legs, the puppets’ long, ground-length cotton voile skirts twirl about when in motion. The arms, made of wood or cloth stuffed with cotton, articulated at the elbow and wrist, hang and move freely on both sides of the body. The kathputli puppets (putli meaning doll and kath, wood) are sculpted and painted by the puppeteers themselves and are composed of a head inserted on a short, thin torso of wood. They traveled to Uttar Pradesh and other areas that were Hindi and Urdu (or Hindustani) speaking, thus the language of the kathputli ka khel – for both songs and dialogues – was a blend of these two languages. ![]() Indeed, they mostly performed in other states, not only in Rajasthan. The kathputli performers claim that their ancestors had performed for royal families and had received great honour and prestige from the rulers of Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, and Punjab. For their own local rulers, for instance, thrice a day in the square they would recite the family histories, the events in the lives of the rulers’ ancestors.Īs puppeteers (kathputliwallah or kathputli kalākāra, “artist”), they perform the kathputli ka khel (“kathputli play”). As genealogists, they kept the family histories of important people in the villages and towns in Rajasthan where they themselves came from. The Bhat and Nat communities of Rajasthan, most originating from the Nagaur district, traditionally nomadic but today more or less sedentary, would travel with family throughout the Thar Desert and Nagaur regions practicing the profession of putliwallah (puppeteer) and genealogists. Traditional string puppet plays from Rajasthan in north-west India. ![]()
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