Puppetry Museum (Dehiwala). - By Prashanth Sentilkumar

Puppetry Museum (Dehiwala). – By Prashanth Sentilkumar

Had the opportunity of visiting a small Puppetry Museum in Dehiwala, called the Traditonal Puppet Art Museum sometime ago.

I had to wait for three weeks to visit the museum because due to less visitations, they were not doing the Puppet show (Rookada). Luckily there was an International School that had booked the place for its small once to see, so myself and 70 students and two teachers had the privilege to watch a beautiful show.

The Museum is run by an elderly couple, very nice people who are finding it hard to maintain the museum due to the present situation, all the puppets are made in Ambalangoda and if anyone wants to see the puppetry show there needs to be a minimum of 20 people, if not they will only show a clip of a recording,the museum is quite small comprising of only 6 rooms and not as big as the Ambalangoda puppetry museum. However the owners are really nice people highly recommend the place.

SriLankan Puppetry a Mini case study – Sri lankan puppetry is known locally as Rookada which means figure or doll and generally is made out of wood.

Many depictions of Puppetry showcases figurings of humans or animals. The start of puppetry in Sri Lanka Can be attributed to the Travelling Puppeters who used to take part in religious festivals,and is mentioned in Pali chronicles,with evidence of puppetry taking place in the 12th century, the most popular genre is Nadagama.

To Sri Lanka and her people Rookada is associated with Traditions and folklore.

Protecting our traditions is our responsibility.