sock puppets paper bag puppets glove puppets simple string puppets The beauty of these different types of puppets is that the resources you need are right there in your home. The repertory and performance techniques were transmitted orally within the families of Read more about this element on the UNESCO Intangible Cultural Heritage website. The following puppets are the easiest to make at home. Wayang stories borrow characters from indigenous myths, Indian epics and heroes from Persian tales. The words and actions of comic characters representing the “ordinary person” have provided a vehicle for criticizing sensitive social and political issues, and it is believed that this special role may have contributed to wayang’s survival over the centuries. In the past, puppeteers were regarded as cultivated literary experts who transmitted moral and aesthetic values through their art. Singers and musicians play complex melodies on bronze instruments and gamelan drums. The master puppeteer (dalang) manipulates the swivelling arms by means of slender sticks attached to the puppets. Both types are characterized by costumes, facial features and articulated body parts.

While these carefully handcrafted puppets vary in size, shape and style, two principal types prevail: the three-dimensional wooden puppet (wayang klitik or golèk) and the flat leather shadow puppet (wayang kulit) projected in front of a screen lit from behind. In this form of puppetry, strings are held by the hands of the puppeteers. String puppets or marionettes is a figure with many joints and suspended by string from a control. Sometimes a stick puppet has sticks attached to the hands as well to make. India has a rich and ancient tradition of string puppets or marionettes. Wayang has spread to other islands (Lombok, Madura, Sumatra and Borneo) where various local performance styles and musical accompaniments have developed. Stick puppets are attached to a single stick or rod that is held by the puppeteer. For ten centuries wayang flourished at the royal courts of Java and Bali as well as in rural areas. Type hand puppets - typically worn on one hand that can be used to operate a mouth, with the other hand used to operate an arm rod puppets - puppets operated. Renowned for its elaborate puppets and complex musical styles, this ancient form of storytelling originated on the Indonesian island of Java.

Types of puppetry