In January and February 2009 I created a performance with young actors and musicians from different areas of the Northeast. Puppetshow ‘Bijulli’ is the last part of a 3 phase project of Theatre Embassy, the Netherlands, in which the actors combined their own cultural and theatre knowledge with the puppetry-skills that they learned in the workshop in August.

This project brings different communities together. We face life from various angles.
Nine languages are spoken by actors and team ( Rabha, Boro, Assamese, Manipuri, Hindi, English, Tiwa, Missing, Dutch). The communication was sometimes complicated as translation takes time and is not always clear. But it was a challenge to express the inner view of this colorful group.

Bijuli is a performance based on improvisation, experience and fantasy of the actors. The show reflects on the world around us by movement and puppetry. Newspapers bring the outside world in our homes. How can we react on terror and pain? How to keep trust in life? Is it possible to create if we feel powerless?
We seduce the audience to follow us to the dreamlike area behind the reality of newspaper-articles, where we find smiles and tears, powerful city-peoples, worries of villagers, politicians and the last Assemese rhino.

Bijuli is performed in 16 various theatres in Assam and Karnataka, India.

Review from Akshara
I liked Bijuli for several reasons. I will mention only two, which I felt are most significant:
1. For its simple and powerful theatricality. In India, this is a time when theatre directors, especially in urban centres are becoming techno-savy. For example, my friend from Delhi used to tell me that these days, to become a ‘contemporary play’ in Delhi any production has to have a video projection at least! And I am also told that Institutions such as NSD spend several lakhs of rupees on a production. In such a context, a production which was rich in imagination but poor in terms of its expenditure was a welcome sight. The fact that your production, mounted with minimum physical resources, was powerful enough to hold the audience here spell bound for an hour (even when the audience did NOT understand any spoken word in it) is a proof for its immense theatrical strength.
2. For the fact that the play was produced in the northe-east where even a normal daily life has become difficult these days. Watching the involvement of the actors, and their effort in the work, I am sure that it has been both a confidance booster as well as a means of social communication for that community. The actors were not only capable, but they were also committed to a serious communication — which made watching the play a really moving experience for me.
I only wish that you will continue your association with them and produce more such theatrical experiences with them…

K.V. Akshara
Heggodu, Karnataka, India

Foto’s : Stijn Decorte www.stijndecorte.com

I visited 10 of my 14 participant in their own village or tribe to coach them in puppetry. Some of them did make new puppets, others did teach new students in the first steps of puppetry.
We organised some small performances in villages or on schools to show the power and magic of puppetry to a wider audience. It is important for the young puppeteer to get support in their environment. I was guest of the families of my participants and slept in their houses. It gave me the chance to learn a lot about their background.
Beside the Boro and Rabha tribe of Assam did I get the chance to visit some tribes of Tripura as well. Tripura is a state south of Assam, cloth to Bangladesh. Viduth, one of my students, showed me around the state.

The Rabha-girls worked on women-issues. We performed improvisations about alcohol-abuse and witch-problems in a small village. The women in the audience reacted very intense on the puppets. Villagers told me that puppets are very special because they are funny and don’t speak much text. Sometimes they can’t understand how they move. “Is there a machine inside? “

Foto’s: Evelien Pullens

In Assam are two groups of extremists active, freedom-fighters ( Ulfa) and muslim-activists. They planned quit a lot of bom-blastings last three month. I didn’t visit the areas where blastings and fights were active, but I could see the high security in the streets and had to be careful.

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Foto’s: Stijn Decorte
Photographer Stijn came with me and made wonderful pictures of puppets and tribes. We were lucky to celibrate a few hindoe-festivals as durgapuja, laksmipuja and divali.

The photoos are made by Stijn Decorte www.stijndecorte.com

I worked for three weeks in Rampur village in Assam with 14 young theatremakers to train them in puppetry. Half of the participant of this workshop are from Boro and Rabha tribes in Assam. The other part is from Manipur and Tripura. One participant has a Missing-background and is raised at the famous river-island Majuli.

In the inauguration speech that I held on five August I said that I wanted to open hearts with puppetry. Village peoples, army men, our driver, press, officials, colleges, all were amazed about what was created by this unexperienced students. Press came all the way, 4 hours driving from Guwahati to see what is meant by the Power of Puppetry. This kind of modern puppetry is new in Assam. There exist a tradition of traditional puppetry with rodpuppets, based on Indian stories like Ramayama.
But my experimental, modern puppetry is a totally new tool.

I am not only teaching the puppetry-skills, most of all I teach creative thinking. That’s because I am interested in the idea that everything has a quality and a soul, even a stone, a newspaper or a piece of cloth. If you touch lifeless material with a flow of energy you can revive the soul of it. With this respectful and magic approach you can create puppets out of everything. You don’t need eyes, nose or mouth to mold a face. Every object or material can get transformed in into a human being. If you use your human energy and concentrated movements it will get a life.

One of the most striking moments of the workshop was the day that a few army peoples unexpectedly visited our training shed. The guns and harsh faces of the military men were frightening. I felt my students shiver when the soldiers entered our camp, but I asked them to continue the puppetry exercise that we were doing. We were exploring different emotions with our small puppets. After sadness, we were just exploring love; how is our puppet when he is in a romantic state. The army men got as fascinated as we were by this small creations. They stayed for one hour to see more and more improvisations. The participants overcame their fear and used their full energy to bring the best they could.

My new youth book is published by Kluitman! ( www.kluitman.nl). The first story of Carlo and Zahra, Carlo en Zahra en het tovertapijt, was about how they met each other. Zahra and her mother came from an other country, Kustan, to Holland. Carlo discovers that Zahra’s mother had woven a magic carpet that whispers an answers to all questions peoples have.
In the new book ‘Carlo en Zahra. De toverclub’ (‘Carlo and Zahra. The magic club’) the friends have build a hut together with Michiel, an other 9 year old friend. The club-members try to learn magic and speak secret words. But for one of the clubmembers, Michiel, is their classmate Ron, who has seen aliens in their neighbourhood, much more interesting then Carlo and Zahra. Carlo is disappointed in his friend and he decides to trick Ron and Michiel.
So the book is full of feelings about friendship and about magic.

I worked with first year illustration students of the HKU in a inspiration-workshop to bring dreams into their memory. With meditation, writing and drawing we went into the surrealistic and unconscious world of dreams.
Two weeks later I guided this students in the composition of a text about their dream or idea about dreaming they had chosen to work out. Each of them should make a page of a handmade book with text and image. In May and June the students worked on the design and hand-printing of his beautiful book. It was presented on last 12 June.
Watch the youtube-film to see making-off his book. http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=droomwoord&search_type=&aq=f

Acrobatics, clowning, juggling, pantomime, shakespeare, puppetry. The Kattaikkuttu students in Kancheepuram South India got a full month theatre workshop programme with a lot of variety and hard work.(



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One of my books ‘Het Fluisterkleed’ has a new title and new illustrations. Now it is called
‘Carlo en Zahra en het tovertapijt’ . Zahra comes from an other country. She is a stranger in the street and at the school. Carlo is curious about Zahra and her mother. He finds out that they have a magic carpet in their home. The carpet is talking and moving. It can answer the questions of people.

In the ‘week of children books’ I visited a school in Eethen. The kids were very interested in ‘how to make a book’. They wanted to know everything from my experiences in India. I brought a puppet who is fond of books.

Monique and I were workshop leaders in a Centre for refugees in Holland. We had to work on art with kids and youth. A group of volunteers assisted us during the Summerweek. These kids were not easy. They were hyper-energetic or strange in communication. Sometimes we were just like police-men. But finaly…..Monique and the boys had build a hut near the footballfield. |I made puppets and a puppetvillage with the small kids and the older girls had made their own handbag.
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The weird knight and All travelbook

‘The weird Knight’ is a small book about autisme published by CPS, developed for education.

“Lars listens with admiration to his big brother. Tuur uses such difficult words now and than. Lars doesn’t know exactly what ‘willy-nilly’ means. But it sounds good. Now Tuur repeats all the time ‘Wik, Tak, Wik, Tak.’ He is like a clock. His sister Lot wispers softly the same. ‘Wik, Tak, Wik, Tak, Wik , Tak. ‘ “

All travelbook is published by Kluitman. It is a childrenbook full of information, jokes and small stories about travelling and enjoying holiday.

TIP
Make a holiday from your life
- Take allways a backpack with you
- Carry your photocamera and sunclasses with you
- Try every day an other way to school
- Every day can give new experience. TRy it.
- Write your life in a diary