Puppet Swing: A harmonious confluence of two art forms

City’s culture buffs were in for a unique treat when two distinct art forms —

puppetry

and

Hindustani classical music

, came under one roof at Alliance Française, recently. Titled ‘Puppet Swing’, the musical puppet show saw the coming together of Indo-French puppeteer

Sabrina Anastasio Arusam

and budding musicians

Dhruv Bedi

and

Saptak Sharma

to present a confluence of both the art forms and captivate the audience.
The evening kicked-off with a Hindustani classical music performance by Dhruv and Saptak on sitar and tabla, respectively. While Dhruv, a disciple of Pt Budhaditya Mukherjee, strummed some soothing raags on his sitar, he was well complemented by Saptak, a student of tabla maestro Ustad Akram Khan, on the percussions. Their calming musical exchanges succeeded in transporting the audience to a serene space.

The tranquillity of the atmosphere was however broken with Sabrina’s sudden entry with her body-puppet Raymond, an old Frenchman on his first visit to India. The seasoned puppeteer turned the quiet space into a laughter club with her exuberant performance. Raymond’s interesting characterisation and witty dialogues managed to tickle the funny bones of both the young and the old in the audience. The puppet’s oddity of finishing every sentence with a comic “blah blah blah” managed to amuse the kids in particular and left them in splits. Soon, the presentation picked pace and the young ones in the audience responded by moving to the front seats in the hall. Sabrina concluded the show with a Kathputli performance — a traditional form of marionette theatre from Rajasthan, and was ably accompanied by Dhruv and Saptak, who provided the background score with some soothing raags. The unique confluence of the art forms managed to captivate the Hyderabadi audience who gave the performers a thumping applause at the end.