Prior to the advent of Cinema and worlds largest film fraternity, Bollywood, Tollywood, Mollywood and all of the other wonderful regional Indian cinema, entertainment was primarily offered through Story-telling. Ballad-singing troupes that travelled from village to village, the Ram Lila, a dance-drama that enacts the Ramayana or folk-dancing on seasonal festivals, puppets-shows and eventually in the 1900s the Bioscope. The Bioscope, was an old camera where the slides were changed cyclically, in sync with, relevant music to give the solitary viewer who peered down the lens, a motion picture experience. How far we’ve come in the span of just a few decades!

In the 16th Century, the Vijayanagara Empire, flourished in the Southern states of India, its rulers were some of the greatest patrons of the arts and crafts. During their reign, Tolubommalata, or the Leather Puppet Theatre, became very popular and with time, one part of that terrain came to be known as the state of Andhra Pradesh and this performing art, survived as a part of cultural heritage.

Puppet-shows need..puppets! Puppets need craftspersons that can use whatever materials are locally available to make attractive puppets that are capable of great stage presence!