Dadi Pudumjee is a leading puppeteer in

India India, officially the Republic of India (Hindi: ), is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by area, the second-most populous country, and the most populous democracy in the world. Bounded by the Indian Ocean on the so ...

and he is the founder of ''The Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust''. He was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award in 1992. He is the President of

UNIMA UNIMA (''Union Internationale de la Marionnette'' - ''International Puppetry Association'') was founded in Prague in 1929 (the then Czechoslovak magazine Loutkář was UNIMA's first official journal in years 1929–1930). In 1981, the French pup ...

and past member of the General Council of the

Sangeet Natak Akademi Sangeet Natak Akademi (The National Academy of Music, Dance and Drama in English) is the national level academy for performing arts set up by the Government of India. History It was set up by the Indian education ministry on 31 May 1952 and ...

Biography

Education

Pudumjee is a

Parsi Parsis () or Parsees are an ethnoreligious group of the Indian subcontinent adhering to Zoroastrianism. They are descended from Persians who migrated to Medieval India during and after the Arab conquest of Iran (part of the early Muslim conq ...

from Pune, where he did his university education was in

Pune Pune (; ; also known as Poona, ( the official name from 1818 until 1978) is one of the most important industrial and educational hubs of India, with an estimated population of 7.4 million As of 2021, Pune Metropolitan Region is the largest i ...

later at the NID

National Institute of Design The National Institutes of Design (NIDs) are a group of autonomous public design universities in India, with the primary institute, founded in 1961, in Ahmedabad, with extension campuses in Gandhinagar and Bengaluru. The other NIDs are loc ...

and

Darpana Academy of Performing Arts Darpana Academy of Performing Arts is a school for performing arts in Ahmedabad, Gujarat, established by Mrinalini Sarabhai and Vikram Sarabhai in 1949, it has been directed by their daughter Mallika Sarabhai for the last three decades. The sc ...

in Ahmedabad under late Meher Contractor, after which he went to the Marionette Theatre Institute in Stockholm, Sweden, and studied puppetry under Michael Meschke.

Career

Drama and puppetry pedagogue at Var theatre Medborgahuset Stockholm Sweden, 1979 He was later a guest director at the Puppen Theatre, Berlin, GDR, Jan 1979. He directed and designed a shadow play the double shadow, on a folk tale by

Vijaydan Detha Vijaydan Detha (1 September 1926 – 10 November 2013), also known as Bijji, was a noted Indian writer of Rajasthani literature. He was a recipient of several awards including the Padma Shri and the Sahitya Akademi Award. Detha has more than 80 ...

. In 1980, he founded the Sutradhar Puppet Theatre at the puppetry division at the

Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts Shri Ram Centre for Performing Arts or SRC one of Delhi's best known theatre Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or im ...

in New Delhi and was its artistic director until 1986, after which he set up his own puppet company
The Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust.
Pudumjee's puppetry is not restricted to the more common versions of string and hand-puppets. He has also used semi-sculptural puppets that are attached to actors' bodies and carried across stage. Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust includes a variety of other media and performers: dancers, actors, objects. Many of his performances are designed to appeal to children, but he has also, especially in his work that addresses themes such as HIV/AIDS and substance use, taken up more adult themes. He ranges freely across multiple cultural traditions. Some of his performances are adaptations of material familiar in traditional Indian theatre, like the story of

Ram Ram, ram, or RAM may refer to: Animals * A male sheep * Ram cichlid, a freshwater tropical fish People * Ram (given name) * Ram (surname) * Ram (director) (Ramsubramaniam), an Indian Tamil film director * RAM (musician) (born 1974), Dutch * ...

and

Sita Sita (; ) also called as Janaki and Vaidehi is a Hindu goddess and the female protagonist of the Hindu epic, ''Ramayana''. She is the consort of Rama, the avatar of the god Vishnu, and is regarded as a form of Vishnu's consort, Lakshmi. She ...

or his 2004 work based on the adventures of Vikram and Betaal (Vampire Tales), titled Transpositions. He has traveled widely to perform as well as teach in many countries including the U.K., Russia, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, U.S.A, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa, Spain. Pudumjee and his troupe performed a version of the Vikram-Betaal myth at New York's La MaMa Theater. Over the years, he has worked extensively with children, especially street children, including his 2007 project with street children of Salaam Baalak Trust, for UNESCO Paris and the EU on projects on non-formal education that address HIV and substance use. April 2008 he was elected the president o
UNIMA
for a four-year term - UNIMAs first non-European president in the organisation's 80-year history. He was reelected as UNMA President till 2016. Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust organises the annual Ishara International puppet festival each year in January/February in Delhi, with shows in Chennai, Jaipur and Mumbai in the previous festivals. 2010 will be the 8th season of this popular festival, with both traditional and modern puppet groups from India and abroad taking part. Ishara is known as one of India's leading modern puppet companies, Ishara creates puppet events, conducts workshops, and performances on social awareness themes. Styles range from simple rod puppets to larger than life figures and object puppetry, processional figures, shadow, glove and mixed media. Ishara conducts workshops for various organisations, schools and NGOs in Delhi and India. 2014 Ishara created puppets for the opera A Flowering Tree directed by Vishal Bhardwaj, at the Theatre du Chatelet Paris, and also puppets for the song sequence Bismil in the film Haider by Vishal Bhardwaj. The annual Ishara International puppet festival, organised each year in February in Delhi and other cities is in its 16th year in 2018.

Awards

Awarded Padmashree by the President of India 2011 * Sangeet Natak Akademi Award, 1992 * Sanskriti Pratishan Award * Delhi Natya Sangh Award

References

External links

Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust Official Website

{{DEFAULTSORT:Pudumjee, Dadi Artists from Ahmedabad Recipients of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award Indian puppeteers UNIMA presidents Living people National Institute of Design alumni Gujarati people Recipients of the Padma Shri in arts 20th-century Indian male artists 21st-century Indian male artists Year of birth missing (living people) Parsi people