About Ram

Katkatha Puppet (India)
Recommended for ages 12+
Length of Show: 60 minutes, no intermission
Venue: New England Youth Theater, 100 Flat Street, Brattleboro VT
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Show Description:

As the name suggests, the performance is about Ram, the prince of Ayodhaya 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 Ravana 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 one 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.

Artist/Company Bio:

Katkatha is an amalgam of two Hindi words. Kat means wood and is derived from the word Katputli (puppetry), Katha meaning story and together they become puppets and stories. Bits of fabric, styrofoam figures, papier mache sculptures, Shakespearean comedies and Indian epics, the stories from conflict zones, self help groups run by women, from  prisons and  the worlds of little children are all a part of our work. About Ram was created with a performance grant from the India Foundation for the Arts and in collaboration with animator Vishal Dar and master puppeteer S.Chidambara Rao, from the Tolu Bommalattam form of Andhra Pradesh. 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, and 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.

Credits:

Performed by Avinash Yadav, Pawan Waghmare, Mohammad Shameem Music By Abhijeet Banerjee Directored by Anurupa Roy Company Website: https://www.katkatha.org/  Presentation of About Ram at the Puppets in the Green Mountains Festival is generously supported by the Jim Henson Allelu Award. Allelu Kurten believed in the power of puppetry to bring people together. She loved attending international puppet festivals and traveled the world over to see great shows. As the general secretary of UNIMA-USA (1978-1992), Allelu was a great advocate for American puppeteers in the international community.