The Info Dragon’s Lair

Puppet Art is popular in many countries of Asia. Indonesian Puppet shadow play was known as Wayang Kulit which originated from Bali and Java. The term Wayang Kulit has been derived from the words “Warang” meaning ghost or shadow and “Kulit” meaning leather and when put together meant shadow from leather. They used two-dimensional figures, flat and round and were made with the hide of a buffalo. The sticks attached to these figures were planted in the banana stems which were placed beneath a cloth screen onto which the shadow of the puppet was casted. The right side of the stage was occupied by the good characters; where as the left side was occupied by the wrong doers. They are maneuvered by puppeteers know as “Dalang”. Puppet art was very exhausting at that time, the show used to go on for nine hours in the night with the puppeteer sitting cross-legged without a wink. He was even expected to play Rebab, the two-stringed violin, with one hand and handle the Chempala or the strings of the puppet with another hand. The themes of these shows were the Javanese versions of the two hundred stories from Hindu epics Ramayana and Mahabharata which are referred to as Rama cycle and Pandawa cycle respectively. The puppet show involving three-dimensional puppets were known as Wayang Golek.

Shadow puppetry took its full form in Tang Dynasty. That era was known as “The Age of 1000 Entertainments”. The two different kinds of puppetry are Cantonese and Pekingese. They differ in the production of the puppets and the way by which these puppets are being positioned with the help of rods, though the theme is same in both the techniques, that is, they revolve around stories with elements of adventurous fiction. Thick leather was used in the manufacturing of Cantonese puppets, so as to create a good shadow. The colors were used to represent different characters. A brave man had a red facial color where as an honest character had a black face. The rod was attached perpendicularly to the head of the puppet to make them less visible during the shadow performance. The puppets were bigger than Pekingese puppets. On the other hand the Pekingese puppets were more petite and were made out of thin and translucent leather which made them more fragile. They were equally good for the shadow performance as they were colored very vividly. Thin rods were attached to the neck of the figure and weren’t visible during the performance. The Chinese puppeteers had a superstition that the puppets will come to life at night if the head was kept intact with the body. So the head was separated from the body and the body was stored in a box. With respect to time, shadow puppetry started flourishing and reached its prime in the eleventh century.

Puppetry blossomed in the Indian villages and became an integral part of the folk culture. The puppets of India can be broadly classified as rod, thread, shadow and glove puppets which are made out of material like leather, wood, wool or cloth. Usually these puppets have a small body with an outstanding head with large eyes to add charm and personality. The villain has characteristic dark goggle eyes; the hero of the story has light eyes. Hands are made out of cloth bags stuffed with hands and most of the puppets have no legs which are substituted by a long robe. Exceptions are the ones who have to ride horses. The male puppets are made to wear turbans and chase the bad guy, fight and even fall dead and the female puppets have braided ponytails and hold their skirts in their hand while dancing. The head-puppeteer moves the puppets with the help of strings or rods and usually provides the voice and the female voices and songs are provided by his wife and kids. Denizens of the states Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka,
Kerala, Orissa and Rajasthan are well known to have mastered the art of puppetry. The drawback of puppetry is that it lacks facial expression. Exaggeration and distortion should be provided to achieve the best results. But the humor provided is incomparable which make this irreplaceable art unique in itself.

The early man as a means of interaction, to express their inner thoughts and a means to recording events, discovered arts. The ancient caves; monuments and scripts preserved in the museums bear witness to that fact. As we evolved, so did art. Art has reached such height that now it can be classified into various categories that further have subcategories. Different regions and civilizations have different forms, which have a deep influence of the culture. Vaguely arts can be distinguished as one depicted by expressing it on a medium like paintings, sculptures, architecture, and crafts and the other having human body involvement like acting, gestures, dialogues and singing. On this basis broad classifications of arts that can be made are visual arts, culinary arts, performing arts and language art.

Ancient Greeks played a major role in the persuasion of art associating with human form, which comes under the category of performing arts. Here the human figure is used as a medium of expressing art rather than materials like stone, metal, clay or paint. But to support the human form of art, clay or metal model more vividly known as props are used to enhance the performance which come under the category of plastic arts. Some of the subcategories of performing arts are theater, dance, music, magic, opera, juggling, film, comedy, acrobatics, martial arts, and marching arts such as brass bands. Accordingly the human performers depicting these sub classes of performing arts are known as actors, dances, musicians, magician, singers, jugglers, comedians and acrobats.

The word theater also originated from the Greek word “Theatron” which means “Place of Seeing”. Plays were held on special events having religious importance, so the main idea revolved around ancient roman gods with the role of male gods being enacted with musculature, elegance and poise where as the female gods being enacted with beauty, grace and anatomically correct magnitude. Singing was also used as a means of enacting other than dialogue delivery. Along with the costumes masks were also a part of the actors’ attire. The stage was set in a realistic landscape backdrop.

During the middle ages storylines of the plays were mostly based on biblical incidences with an influence of the Byzantine and Gothic art. The Eastern art was mostly influenced by the Western medieval art. Not much concentration was paid to the realistic illustration. The costumes too were surface patterning, which means the basic color of the robe was emphasized upon rather than enhancing it by playing with light.

The nineteenth and the twentieth century saw a revolution being effected by the discoveries made during that era by Aristotle, Einstein and Newton. Light was used to modulate the color and to bring about a realistic feeling by creating an environment to absorb the audience into it. As inventions were made, traveling became very easy. This led to the influence of one culture over the other, which also globalized the western taste in theaters around the world.

As time progressed there have been diverse changes in theater arts that depicted different culture and moral values. The themes have revolved around fairytales, fables, religion, folktales, comedy, fiction, tragedy, romance, legend, history, epic, biography, adventure and material truths. The different forms of theater arts are mime, opera, kabuki, ballet, classical Indian dance, Chinese opera, pantomime and mummers’ play. Today Theater Arts are as important form of art as any other arts and attracts all art lovers towards it.