World Puppetry Day march 21st

Now a World Puppetry Day on Mar 21

Puppeteers call for more fests on smaller scale for art promotion.
Express Features Service`

Lucknow, February 27: TO promote the dying art of puppetry, puppeteers from all across the country would observe March 21 as the World Puppetry Day. On this day, they would present atleast one show wherever they are to reach out to the masses and make them more aware about the art of puppetry.

This was decided by the Sangeet Natak Akademi award wining puppeteers, who came together at the Lalit Kala Akademi Regional Centre at Aliganj to speak out on the problems of puppetry and puppeteers. The discussion was held as a part of the ongoing National Puppetry Festival, organised by the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi alongwith the Uttar Pradesh Sangeet Natak Akademi.

The winners included Dadi D Pudumji from New Delhi, Puran Bhatt from Rajasthan, Suresh Dutta from Kolkata apart from Anurupa Roy from New Delhi and Pradeep Nath and Milan Yadav from Lucknow.

The experts said lack of state patronage would force this traditional art form to die a premature death, as the art form often receives a step motherly treatment in state schemes. They said the national festivals indeed bring such art forms into limelight, but the need of the hour is to have more and more regional festivals at smaller scale for continuos promotion and awareness amongst the masses.

Meanwhile, in the evening, two presentations were staged. The first one was ‘Bandhu’ staged by the Tripura Puppet Theatre which was directed by Pravitanshu Das and the second one was ‘Gardharbh Manushya Prahasan’ (you cannot change a donkey into a man) presented by the Baal Baalaga Puppet house of Karnatka and directed by Prakash Garun.