CONTEMPORARY ART OF THE PUPPET THEATER IN THE CONTEXT OF THE NATIONAL CULTURE OF KAZAKHSTAN
Authors: Yeshmuratova А.К. , Eskendirov N.R. 
Published: March 2023

The author of the article considers the question of understanding the role of keeping alive and embodying national traditions in the modern theatrical space (on the example of the play "Er Tostik" of K. Yezhembek, staged by K. Eshmuratova). The analysis of the play "Er Tostik" is presented from the point of view of using a new range of expressive means and introducing modern genres of musical art as an original directorial solution. The purpose of this article is to study the contemporary art of the puppet theater in the context of the national culture of Kazakhstan.

In modern conditions of social development, when the whole world is on the verge of two times – two millennia: the second millennium is coming to an end and the third millennium is about to begin, due to objective and subjective reasons, among the urgent problems of the present, problems concerning not only the economic and political sphere, social development, but also no less an important one is the spiritual sphere. It is not for nothing that the processes that we can observe in our time with all the brightness and acuteness illuminate a wide range of problems in the field of spiritual culture of the country.

One of the topical issues of the spiritual development of modern Kazakh society is keeping alive the national traditions and values. And this topic became the key for the state project "Tugan Zher", developed on the initiative of the First President Nursultan Nazarbayev. The deep essence of the goal-setting of the presented state project is the formation of the cultural code of the nation, without which it is impossible to solve the tasks of strengthening national unity, developing human capital and civil society.

The formation of cultural codes is the core of the formation of cultural identity, which as you know should be formed starting from an early age, in the so-called sensitive period of personality development. It is obvious that puppet theater as an artistic phenomenon is in this sense one of the most effective forms of art. It is no coincidence that researcher E.Y. Romanovsky emphasizes that "the national is inherent in the very nature of the puppet theater. We can say that this theater has always had regional specifics or sought to express through the universal, some unique qualities of culture."

The modern Kazakh puppet theater, like society, is going through an age of active restructuring, when old norms and ideas fade into oblivion, revealing the way to a new methodology, a synergetic scientific approach. Today we can see how the puppet theater of the XXI century performs the functions of a research laboratory, diagnostics of public sentiment, a forecaster of the social future and a creative space for the formation of national values of a new generation.

Characterizing the repertoire policy of the modern Kazakh puppet theater it can be noted that, perhaps, the main goal of a particular collective is the opportunity to vividly reflect not only the peculiarities of the national identity of culture, but also to highlight the most important ideas and problems of modernity in their work. In the performances that define the face of the theater, attention is paid to the multidimensionality of Kazakh culture, the spiritual world of the contemporary, reflecting the problems of the common man.