Bilaspur: Kiran Moitra, a woman from Chhattisgarh’s Bilaspur, has been performing puppet dances to create awareness among the people through education, information and publicity. She performs puppet shows for voters' awareness during elections, including government schemes.
“Puppet dance is a means of entertainment, but our effort is to create public awareness to the people through education, information and publicity, along with entertainment, puppet artist Kiran Moitra said.
Moitra has been associated with about 25 artists, who are experts in the art of puppet dance. Moitra said, “Due to family responsibilities and not getting the job of showing puppet shows, the artists are now slowly getting busy with other works. If they start earning well, in the future they may leave the puppet shows.”
Rupesh Kurre, a puppet artist, associated with Kiran Moitra said, “I have been associated with the puppet show since 15 years. Earlier, the work was provided by the government, along with creating public awareness, we used to roam around the entire state and provide information about welfare schemes of the government to the public through puppet shows. If the government wants, we can still get daily work.”
“Earlier, this art was enough for us to support the family, but now I have two children and they are working as daily wage labourers due to lack of work. We want the government should pay attention to this,” Kurre added.
Word Puppetry Day seeks to recognise puppetry as a global art form and is celebrated every year on March 21.
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