Community and Peace-Building Projects

International Projects

University of West England, Bristol UK

2020–21

The Art of Healing

This is AHRC supported research project with University of West England, Bristol. The project is an intervention using the arts in therapy with thirty children at the Dolphin International School in Pulwama, Kashmir. This project seeks to evolve a curriculum for wellbeing among children growing up in conflict zones.

Sylvie Baillon Mentorship

2020

January to March. Mentorship by Sylvie Baillon, Director of Le Tas de Sable Ches Panses Vertes.

Sylvie will mentor a collaboration between groups that work with puppets or materials and professional writers. Attended by five companies namely Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust with writer, Gillo Repertory, Un-Lock, and three members of Katkatha.

Japan Foundation
2018–19

Collaboration with Setagaya Silk for Bamboo Princess

In 2018-19 an Indo-Japanese experience unfolded between Katkatha members at Savitri Villa in Mussoorie. Avinash Kumar(dancer), Mohammad Shameem (puppeteer and puppet maker) and Anurupa Roy (director) with Kimi Takei(dancer), Ken Oishi (actor), Keita (String puppeteer) and Honoh Horikawa (Director) spent 20 days creating their version of the Japanese folktale called The Bamboo Princess. Told with watermark shadows on an OHP, dance, masks, string and rod puppets the show bridged two cultures and ways of working.

University of West England, Bristol UK
2018

Rajasthan water project

The project was focused on water conservation in Jhunjhunu dist. of Rajasthan, where pipeline water brought to homes has led to the breakdown of traditional systems of preserving water. The project worked with a group of school children aged 7-15 years at the local school in Chirawa, Jhunjhunu. The project was called “water detectives” and the children collected folklore, stories, songs etc. about water from their grandparents, parents, village elders etc. and turned them into shadow puppets and paper cut installations.

Barbara Kölling Mentorship

2017

Barbara Kölling, the co-founder and director of Helios Theatre in Hamm works with material theatre with a special focus on toddlers. In 2016-17 she spent two sessions mentoring eight theatre groups from across India. These were Tadpole Repertory Theater from, Plus One, Team Gunjan and Dhruv, Yellow Cat and Katkatha’s own team from Delhi, Gillo Theatre and Tram Arts Trust from Mumbai and Ihab Talameh from Palestine. By the end of the 7 weeks each group performed for children aged 3-6 years of age many times. Some of these shows continue to perform and tour!

Read more about this project here.

Amiens, France
2013–2019

WW1 project in France with Vasant Valley and Shiv Nadar School. Katkatha collaborated from 2013–2019 with the French puppetry group ‘Le Tas de Sable Ches Panses Vertes’at, a project, looking at a century of WWI. The team worked with two Delhi schools, Vasant Valley and Shiv Nadar for two years each. The purpose was to look at the impacts of war, most notably through the concept of exiles, or refugees. During the meetings, children were oriented to puppetry and the themes of the First World War through a brief research of the situation of the Indian soldiers participating in World War I, which was conducted by reading letters of the soldiers and replying to them, and building models of the trenches. In Shiv Nadar each child collected a personal story of exile from a neighbour or their own family. They discovered that Delhi is a city of refugees. Almost every person in Delhi came from somewhere else. Many came from Pakistan or Bangladesh when the country was partitioned, many from Kashmir who fled during the conflict. These families carried many memories. All of these came together in stories and poems, bound together by the central idea of enforced homelessness.

The performance creations of both schools then travelled to Amiens, France, to stage their play in 2015 and 2018.