Even if this part is written in the script, the duration varies depending on the connection with the audience and the skills of the shadow master. All Karagöz shows start like this.Ģ – Dialogue: In this part Karagöz and Hacivat have a conversation. Karagöz is always reluctant, but ends up coming down to fight with Hacivat. This is followed by one of the main characters, Hacivat, who enters the screen with songs and poems. There are four main segments in Karagöz plays.Ĭengiz Özek and Stefan Carelius, in the Simposium of Barcelona.ġ – Intro: Before the show starts a figure, which is unaffiliated with the show itself, is moves across the screen for a short visual shadow sequence accompanied with the sounds of a sizzling sounding mouth instrument called nareke. The art was often experienced at festivities, circumcisions and Ramadan events and was a favourite form of entertainment at the cafes and mansions. Karagöz quickly became an important form of entertainment from the 17th century.

The art spread from Istanbul to the different parts of the Ottoman Empire across Greece, Bosnia and Romania in the Balkans and Syria, Egypt Tunisia and Algeria in the Middle East and North Africa, and also Cyprus. People attending the Symposium Polichinela in Barcelona. To satisfy the requests received to publish the papers presented at the “Symposium Punch: Between Myth, Tradition and contemporaneity” (21, 22 and 23 November 2013, at the Theatre Institute of Barcelona, organized by the magazine Puppetring see here), and having already published the English version of Karim Dakroub the shadow theater in the Arab world (see articles here), that the presentation by Cengiz Özek, Karagöz Master and director of the International Puppet Festival of Istanbul.

Karagoz shadow puppetry