Salaki Suthrada Bombe

Wooden figures dressed in Moodalapaaya finery, come alive on rods and strings. This performance brings traditional folk puppets to the stage, performed by a troupe carrying the craft forward across five generations.

Each puppet stands three to three and a half feet tall, carved by hand and strung with iron rods and thread for manipulation, a technique passed down through a family of performers for nearly a century and a half. The evening opens with the history of the form and its place within Karnataka’s wider puppetry traditions, before the artists demonstrate how a puppet is carved, dressed, and strung. Audience members are then invited to try the rods and strings themselves, before the evening closes with a full performance drawn from Karnataka’s mythological and folk repertoire.

This performance is the ninth edition of the BIC Jaanapada series.

BIC Jaanapada is a series, programmed every two months, celebrating Karnataka’s folk traditions through the lens of regional identity and cultural preservation. Curated in collaboration with Tvarita Arts Collective India, the program combines scholarly discourse with live performances to explore the deep connections between geography and artistic expression. Through demonstrations, performances, and academic discussions, each session examines how landscape and local culture have shaped these distinct artistic practices.

In collaboration with:

Venue: Auditorium