Excelsior Correspondent
JAMMU, Aug 19: International Theatre workshop started here today at Natrang Studio Theatre Jammu with the lighting of the traditional lamp by Padmashree Balwant Thakur.
This International Theatre workshop is being conducted by Fabian Hartwell who has come all the way from London. He is accompanied by Anish Gawande who is a senior scholar at Columbia University New York, majoring in Comparative Literature and Ranjini Nair who is a Kuchipudi practitioner from New Delhi.
Natrang has organised this workshop with the support of Dara Shikoh Centre for the Arts, run by Dr Jyotsna Singh. This workshop in Natrang will conclude with his work with Natrang’s regular children. In his inaugural address Natrang Director Balwant Thakur informed that Natrang in association with Dara Shikoh foundation has ventured this week long theatre workshop for the scholars, actors and theatre lovers at its studio theatre. Natrang has brought this international exposure for the people of Jammu who will have a life-time opportunity to learn new techniques of theatre and performing arts.
Balwant Thakur further informed that 21 people have been selected through a process of interviews for this workshop being conducted by Fabian Hartwell. He will work with adults as well as children in the following days. Fabian Hartwell is a recent graduate in South Asian Studies from the School of Oriental and Africa Studies in London. He holds a keen interest in musical theatre as both a performer and a teacher. His academic work focuses on the relationship between violence and masculinity in India, with his project for the Dara Shikoh Fellowship exploring ways to understand these phenomena through Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed. Fabian will work on two types of concept, mainly theatre of the oppressed and masculinity.
Through the help of this International workshop, Natrang hopes to initially teach and establish some basic dramatic and storytelling conventions, building trust within the group and then later work on Boal’s Forum Theatre. On the first day ‘Augusto Boal was discussed and various theatre exercises were explored. Fabian in the following days is keen to use the “theatre of the oppressed” technique developed initially in Brazil to explore the construction of society in Jammu. The form can be employed to depict themes ranging from the impact of conflict on livelihoods to the need for women’s empowerment in the workplace.
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