Puppetry

One of the highlights of my previous trip to Timbaktu (the one before the latest), which I forgot to blog about, was a puppet show that I saw.
Timbaktu often uses puppet shows and street theater and songs kind of stuff as a way to spread awareness about something. Last time when I was there, the organic farming group was planning to use a puppet show to explain the concepts and advantages of organic farming. They way they do this is to 'outsource' the task to professional puppeteers. They explain the message that needs to be got across and the puppeteers then put together a show around the theme. When I was there, the puppeteers wanted to show what they had put together (first draft kind of thing) to the Timbaktu people and refine based on the feedback. So I got a chance to see that show. And it was great !

Traditionally this art form ('tholubommalaata') is used to portray scenes from the Ramayana during the Ramanavami festival. The way they did the show was to intersperse an organic farming story with the "Sundarakhanda" scene from the Ramayana (Hanuman going to Ceylon to meet Sita). The organic farming skit was really good, the Sundarakhanda scene was nice but rather slow. The farming portion was done very humourously - with very strong characterisation and great speaking styles. Technically it was marvellous and highly skilled. They use a white silk screen and manipulate paper figures behind the screen. They use bright overhead lights on top with the effect that you don't see the humans at the back. Overall, entertainment of a high order and not at all something that you would expect to see in an impoverished village area.

BTW -- the link I showed in a previous post to a report on the Timbaktu website is actually quite neat. There is some cool stuff at the end about some of the traditional arts and games, in particular one called 'utlamaana' that is particularly imaginative.