For theatre practitioner, researcher, and Sapan founding member Marlon Ariyasinghe, September 2026 marked the culmination of a deeply personal journey rooted in living heritage, academic rigor, and grassroots empowerment. Working alongside Sri Lanka’s traditional puppeteers, Marlon helped bridge centuries-old folk traditions with international recognition and community-led preservation, mirroring Sapan’s core ethos of dismantling hierarchies and honoring indigenous knowledge.
Along the southern coast of Sri Lanka, in towns like Ambalangoda, Balapitiya, and Mirissa, the rhythmic click of wooden joints and the vibrant cadence of folk theater have echoed across generations. This is the world of Rūkada Nātya, the traditional Sri Lankan string puppet drama inscribed on UNESCO’s Representative List of the Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity in 2018.
In September 2026, this centuries-old art form achieved a double milestone on the global and local stage: receiving a prestigious international heritage award in the Republic of Korea and inaugurating a groundbreaking, community-led home museum in Ambalangoda.
On 11 September 2026, Sri Lanka’s Saranga Puppet Group was awarded first place among 125 applicants from 52 countries for the 2026 Jeonju International Award for Promoting Intangible Cultural Heritage in Jeonju, Republic of Korea.
Just four days after the Jeonju ceremony, on 15 September 2026, another vital chapter began at home with the opening of the Rūkada Gedara Puppet Home Museum in Ambalangoda.
Decolonising the museum:
Historically, traditional museums, often rooted in colonial modes of collection, have removed cultural objects from their source communities, transferring the authority to name, classify, and interpret those items to outside institutions and academic experts.
Rūkada Gedara Museum turns this model on its head.
Built around the Gamwari family, the oldest continuous lineage of Rūkada practitioners in Sri Lanka, the home museum keeps the artists themselves at the center of interpretation. Led by Master Premin Gamwari, a highly revered string puppeteer and artisan, the museum recognises that Rūkada Nātya is an embodied knowledge system. It cannot be reduced to static archival texts; it lives in the physical memory of puppet carving, string manipulation, vocal inflection, and ritual performance passed down through family apprenticeships.
Supported through Stanford University’s Research, Action, and Impact through Strategic Engagement (RAISE) Doctoral Fellowship Program, administered by the Office of the Vice Provost for Graduate Education, Marlon’s RAISE project focused on working directly alongside the Gamwari family to build a genuinely community-led museum framework.
Marlon’s dual commitment to academic rigor and grassroots empowerment directly mirrors the ethos of Sapan: dismantling hierarchies, honoring indigenous and embodied knowledge, and ensuring that community practitioners are never relegated to passive subjects of study, but remain the authors of their own stories.
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The Sapan Blog is a space for reflection, commentary, and conversation by members of the Southasia Peace Action Network community. Here, Sapaners, journalists, peacebuilders, artists, and thinkers share personal essays and perspectives that connect Southasia’s stories, challenges, and triumphs. From culture to climate, sport to solidarity, these blogs go beyond the headlines to bring you the region’s heart and humour.
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