Max Mueller Bhavan will organise a delightful puppet theatre performance, under the banner of Germany and India 2011-2012: Infinite Opportunities. Sanjay and his Master, produced by KinderKinder Theater, Germany is currently on a multi-city tour of India and will play at Ranga Shankara on January 29.
Synopsis: Sanjay, a young man, leaves home to pursue a career as musician. He comes to a bustling, colourful market place and decides to play his old sitar to get money for food.
His listeners are not amused and throw tomatoes at him. Desperately, he goes to the famous court-musician and virtuoso Rajad and asks him to take
him on as his pupil.
He improves from week to week and falls in love with the master’s beautiful daughter Nandita. Sanjay wants to stay in the city close to his beloved and wants to be a court-musician - just like his teacher Rajad.
The king decides that he needs only one musician and the best. Sanjay and Rajad have to compete in a concert and only one of them can stay. After dramatic events, fate works in an unexpected way.
The puppeteer: Matthias Kuchta studied History, Slavonic Studies, Education and History in order to become a teacher in Secondary education. Following this he studied at the puppet theatre college in Bochum. 1982 he presented his first professional production — The Bremen Town Musicians.
Since then he became known as a puppeteer all over the world. His manifold play with figures and voice, his dedication to his stories and his sensibility for the children in the audience create a great theatre experience. No matter in which country or in which language, his play fascinates children and adults all over the world. Sanjay and his Teacher will be the third collaboration of Matthias with KinderKinder.
The director: Dadi Pudumjee studied at the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts puppetry section under the late Meher Contractor and later at the National Institute of Design and at the Marionette Theatre Institute in Stockholm, Sweden. He studied puppetry under Michael Meschke. He worked as a guest director at the Puppentheater, Berlin, in 1979.
In 1980, he founded the Sutradhar Puppet Theatre at the Shri Ram Centre for Art and Culture in New Delhi and was its artistic director until 1986, after which he set up his own puppet company, The Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust.
He has travelled widely to perform as well as teach in many countries including the UK, Russia, Japan, Australia, Indonesia, Brazil, USA, Sweden, Singapore, South Africa and Spain. Pudumjee and his troupe performed a version of the Vikram-Betaal myth at New York’s La MaMa Theater. 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. Over the year 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.
In April 2008, he was elected as the president of UNIMA for a four-year term. Ishara Puppet Theatre Trust organises the annual Ishara International Puppet Festival each year in Delhi. Ishara conducts workshops for various organisations and NGOs in
Delhi and India.