
Tholpavakoothu (Malayalam:തോൽപ്പാവക്കൂത്ത്, Tamil:தோல்பாவைக்கூத்து) is a form of shadow puppetry that is practiced in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, India. It is performed using leather puppets and is performed in temples or in villages in specially built theatres. This form of art is especially popular in the Madurai and nearby districts of Madurai in Tamil Nadu and also in Palakkad, Thrissur and Malappuram districts of Kerala. thumb|210px|A scene from Tholpavakoothu thumb|210px|A scene from Tholpavakoothu thumb|210px|Puppet of Seeta, under the Asoka tree thumb|Performance by Ramachandra pulavar and
Tholpavakoothu (Malayalam:തോൽപ്പാവക്കൂത്ത്, Tamil:தோல்பாவைக்கூத்து) is a form of shadow puppetry that is practiced in Kerala and Tamil Nadu, India. It is performed using leather puppets and is performed in temples or in villages in specially built theatres. This form of art is especially popular in the Madurai and nearby districts of Madurai in Tamil Nadu and also in Palakkad, Thrissur and Malappuram districts of Kerala. thumb|210px|A scene from Tholpavakoothu thumb|210px|A scene from Tholpavakoothu thumb|210px|Puppet of Seeta, under the Asoka tree thumb|Performance by Ramachandra pulavar and team at Govt. S.N.D.P.U.P. School, Pattathanam, Kollam.
thumb|Ramachandra Pulavar preparing the puppets before the show, Mumbai, 2017 thumb|Tholpava koothu shadow puppet artists thumb|210px|Koothumadam, prepared for a stage show thumb|Ezhupara, a percussion instrument used in Tholpavakoothu
Discovered by embedding cosine similarity (sentence-transformers MiniLM, 384-dim).