Puppetry Workshop

I attended a puppetry workshop last week with Abhiram at the Katkatha trust. From 5th to 12th June. An 8 day 10 hours a day intensive program. Well there were 9 adults from varied fields. 3 school teachers from Coimbatore, a film-maker, a theater professional, an NGO employee, a fresh graduate and 2 quizmasters (ya, that's us). Well our main trainer Anurupa Mem (that's what we fondly called her) was an Internationally acclaimed in India puppeteer (an internal puppet community joke)

Quizzing, from my side of the table, (quizmastering??) is an interesting way of presenting content. Similarly, puppetry is another interesting way to present content. While the former is a presentation of stories after stories (question after question) knit beautifully the latter is one class act. Now why am I talking about the two in one sentence, that's because I want to integrate the two. Seamlessly. How will I do it? I do have a vague idea but let's see if it actually clicks. But one thing I am quite sure of is that my first puppetry+quiz show will not happen before 2012, that's the amount of practice you need to do. (unless of course I leave everything else- quizzing, new media and football- to pursue puppetry only)

Now coming back to the workshop. We were initially taught the nuances(movement, anatomy etc.) of the Bunraku, the importance of which I realized over time. We then moved on to making puppets. Some chose Shadow puppets while the others chose Mouth puppets, we chose the latter (not because we are bad at drawing but because we suck at it). Making a mouth puppet took close to 5 days #firsttimers. And in the middle of all of this were adjusted a few puppet exercises, but its all about practice, practice and more practice. We, Abhiram and I, were also invited to attend puppetry jam sessions. Will give us a great platform to test ourselves.

PS: The only regret- the puppet didn't quite turn out to be that impressive, thanks to my stitching and visualising skills :(