Online screening of About Ram followed by a Q&A with Anurupa Roy (Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust), in conversation with Paula Richman (Oberlin College) and John Bell (Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut). Hosted by the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry. Date TBA
ABOUT RAM
Presented by Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust
Directed by Anurupa Roy.
Performed by Avinash Yadav, Pawan Waghmare, Mohammad Shameem.
Music by Abhijeet Banerjee.
Animation Visualization by Vishal K Dhar
55 minutes
Glimpse of the show:
Synopsis:
As the name suggests, the performance is about Ram, the prince who is sent on a long journey far away from his home when he is exiled by his father along with his wife Sita and brother Lakshman. Sita is kidnapped by Ravan the king of Lanka and kept prisoner. As Ram sits by the ocean looking at Lanka across its vastness his life flashes by, he feels powerless and dejected as he longs to fly across the ocean to his beloved Sita. The puppeteers help him by projecting his desires into the mask of the super hero Hanuman which attaches itself to Rams face, at once turning him into a super powerful simian who leaps across the ocean and reaches Sita.
In this journey and the bloody war that follows with Ravan, Ram becomes a king, forced to choose between the duty of the throne and the love of his wife. He rules alone for the next 10,000 years.
Background
About Ram was created with a performance grant from the India Foundation for the Arts and in collaboration with animator Vishal Dar. It is an experimental theatrical piece using excerpts from the Bhavbhuti Ramayana and told through animation, projected images, dance, masks and puppets.
About the show
‘About Ram” , a collaborative performance, is a coming together of many skills and ideas.
This adaptation looks at Ram as a human being and not as “God”. It traces Ram’s inner journey as a man tormented by his forced separation from his wife Sita. He then fights a fierce battle with the demons to rescue Sita only to be tormented by his own inner demons. Is Sita still pure? Will the people of Ayodhya ever accept her?
Our story begins as Ram sits by the sea overlooking Lanka where Sita is held captive by Ravan. Ram looks at his ring and his life flashes past him. He relives his days as Prince of Ayodhaya, riding an elephant, cheered on by his subjects,. He then pictures himself at the court of Janak where he breaks Shiva’s bow and wins the hand of princess Sita but is soon sent into exile for 14 years. Ram follows Marich the demon disguised as a golden deer and in the meantime Ravan kidnaps Sita. Jatayu tries to save her but is killed in battle with Ravan. Ram collapses in despair. Ram is played by a Bunraku like puppet operated by 3 puppeteers; his memories are projected on bamboo curtains placed behind him on the set.
The co-ordination between the puppeteers makes the puppet come alive. The fight sequences of the Ram puppet have been inspired by the warrior dance in Seraikela Chauu. Hanuman’s dance with the puppets is inspired by traditional Thai rod puppetry. The only other three dimensional presence is Sita. She has a very subdued presence as she represents fragments of Ram’s memories. Ravan is represented by a Tolu Bommalata shadow puppet which emerges out of a shadow screen to battle with Ram.
We are often asked “why the Ramayana?”
The reason is two fold. Firstly, to re-look at this ancient epic and find a new way of telling it for young people used to sophisticated technology, television and computer games. Secondly, to explore the possibilities of expanding the boundaries of puppetry from the figure of the puppet, to its manipulators and to its environment. We, as a puppet theatre company believe that puppetry is an amalgam of may forms, both plastic and performative and yet it has a distinct identity. Experimenting with different forms will push the boundaries of puppet theatre and expand its identity, a little at a time.
About Ram was made possible with a grant from the India Foundation for the Arts. It premiered at the India International Centre in 2006 and has since been performed at the India Habitat Centre, the World Puppet Theatre Festival, Kaoshuing, Taiwan, the India Foundation for the Arts Festival at Rangashankara , Bangalore and NINASAM, Hegudu.
Brief information about The Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust:
The Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust is a Delhi based puppet theatre company which began in 1998. Since then creating a rigorous training system for puppeteers has been a key focus for the group. In absence of a puppet school or courses to train professional puppeteers in India, Katkatha conducts intensive short courses and workshops in puppet techniques, supports interns who learn by following the work of the company. The focus is to train the next generation of professional puppeteers, create a discourse around puppetry and also build a network of puppeteers.
About Ram, Anurupa Roy and Puppeteering,” review by Anindita Sengupta.
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Paula Richman is William H. Danforth Professor of South Asian Religions, Emerita, at Oberlin College, USA. She has published on Tamil narrative, including Extraordinary Child: Translations from a Genre of Tamil Devotional Poetry (Penguin). In addition, she has edited and contributed to four volumes on the Ramayana tradition, including Many Ramayanas: The Diversity of a Narrative Tradition in South Asia; Questioning Ramayanas, a South Asian Tradition (2000); Ramayana Stories in Modern South India (2008); and co-edited with Rustom Bharucha Performing the Ramayana Tradition: Enactments, Interpretations, and Arguments (2021). At present, she is completing a book on south Indian tellings of the Ramayana, 1910-2010. She has also published on representations of Sita in Mithila paintings.
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The Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry (BIMP) is one of America’s hidden treasures—a superb collection of over 3,500 puppets from all over the world; an archive of books, manuscripts, posters, drawings, audio-visual materials and photographs all covering the history of puppetry. It is also the new home of the Puppeteers of America’s Audio-Visual Collection: the largest collection of videotapes, films, and other media about puppetry in the United States. The Ballard Institute curates and produces exhibitions of puppetry, both at the Ballard Museum and for touring across the United States. The Institute also offers workshops, museum tours, artists’ forums, film showings, performances, and other events and programs that promote the art of puppetry as a twenty-first-century art form with deep historic and global roots.
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This screening and Q&A is part of the World Epics in Puppet Theater: India, Iran, Japan, Italy project, a Columbia University Humanities War & Peace Initiative that aims to foster “the study of war and peace from the perspective of scholars in the Humanities, in conversation with colleagues from around Columbia and the world […] with an ultimate goal of perpetuating a more peaceful world.” The event is co-sponsored by the Humanities War and Peace Initiative, through the Division of Humanities in the Arts & Sciences at Columbia University; the Ballard Institute and Museum of Puppetry, University of Connecticut; the Puppet Arts Program, Department of Dramatic Arts, University of Connecticut; and UNIMA-USA.
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