World Puppetry Day: Need to popularize puppetry for social change and effective inclusive education

Across the globe, the World Puppetry Day (March 21) is being observed since 2003 for which the idea was mooted by Iranian puppet theater artist Javad Zolfaghari. The folk performing art of puppetry involves inanimate objects resembling human or animal figure manipulated by a by a performer called a puppeteer. Worldwide, there are many different types of puppet. Not only trained puppeteers put up puppet theater performances, but many teachers too use simple finger, glove, shadow and stick puppets to pep up classroom instruction.

Non-art use of puppets in teaching and therapy has been promoted at many places. According to Bell, "Puppetry occurs in almost all human societies where puppets are used for the purpose of entertainment through performance, as sacred objects in rituals, as symbolic effigies in celebrations such as carnivals, and as a catalyst for social and psychological change in transformative arts."

In India, on the occasion on World Puppetry Day-2022 'Putul Utsav' is being held in 5 cities , namely, New Delhi, Varanasi, Hyderabad, Agartala and Angul. Accoding to Varanasi based puppeteer, Mithilesh Dubey (see pic), efforts are being made popularize puppetry through local Creative Puppet Theater Trust.

I have found that the simple shape-based stick puppets are inclusively appropriate for children with special needs since they have therapeutic and cognitive development values in them. In pre-schools and schools for children with special needs, puppets need to be the part of playroom and education therapy for cognitive and language development.

However, the puppets should be simple - not gaudily colourful and detailed - and they must be used with a protocol to meet the needs with therapeutic value and not for entertainment. In other words, the puppets should be designed to perform psychological and cognitive functions. Teachers need to design puppets for clinical use with proper script for performance.

My experience informs that shape-dominant stick puppets are good enough as they can be easily and quickly made as per needs and used as shown in the inset picture, These puppets have been designed by Dr Lalit Kishore and Vibhanshu Gaur of Disha assisted by Neha Saini (see pic).