As the lights went off, the small white screen on stage came alive with floating forms of animals in their habitat, humans and scenes from daily life. Mumbai-based hand shadowgraphy artist Rekha Vyas held the audience in the city in a spell. For the next two hours, they were treated to different forms of puppetry and hand shadowgraphy at a show recently organised by GEMS (Gateway to Empower Mind with Solutions).
Practised only by a handful of individuals across the world, hand shadowgraphy is a rare art form where shadow images are created with bare hands. “It looks simple, but it requires years of practice for one to gain mastery over this powerful art form. There are a million things that can be done by hand shadowgraphy,” says Rekha, who is the founder of PepUp, an organisation dedicated to shadowgraphy and puppetry.
“All you need is two hands, a projection screen and a source of light to create magical silhouettes from hand shadowgraphy. It is like a play in which you create the characters through hand movements,” says Rekha, who has been trained under the noted hand shadowgraphy artist Amar Sen from Kolkata. She has performed at various international and national events like the Kala Ghoda Festival in Mumbai, Sangeet Natak Akademi in the Ministry of Culture Government of India and in television channels like Disney and Nickelodeon, among others.
