shiva kumar's video: JNAFAU KORA Leather Puppetry workshop

Here is a small video I shot and composed for the one week workshop conducted by Poludas Satish from KORA Organisation in collaboration with the Sculpture department students of JNAFAU college of fine arts. KORA brought traditional leather puppet making artists from Anantapur District of Andhra Pradesh to teach and explore the dying craft with the help of the students. Apart from making and practicing the puppet show, students also explored new possibilities in creating lampshades, door hangings, artifacts, etc,. It turned out to be greater than expected as the students thoroughly enjoyed the whole process. The shadow form of puppetry locally called Tholu Bommalata, meaning dance of leather puppets (tholu -- leather, bommalata -- puppet dance) is widely practiced in the state of Andhra Pradesh. The puppets are brightly coloured and are made out of goat skin. These leather puppets are about 5-6 ft. in height and have joints at shoulders, elbows, knees and sometimes also the waist, neck and ankles. Traditionally, vegetable dyes are used for colouring the puppets. However, now-a-days chemical dyes which are easily available are also used for colouring the puppets. Perforations are made wherever required on the puppet figure and eyes are painted last. A slim bamboo stick is tied to the puppet which keeps it vertically straight. The puppets are pressed slightly against white screen and manipulated. The audience see the shadow or image. The themes of the play are based on episodes from Ramayana, Mahabaratha or Krishna legend.