Month: July 2020

What is it? A Tree? A Fish? No, A Tree in a Fish. Oh fish! A Hen it is! The Third day of IAPAR 2K18 had Performances for children which commenced with Platform Performance of Goshtichi Goshta by Tiny Tales which received tremendous response by audience followed by the First International Performance of the festival OOPICASSOO, Directed by Julia Dina HeBe which depicted the innumerable possibilities one can find to express oneself. Breaking the conventional form of theatre, watching OOPICASSOO makes you feel completely out of School. When you are given a white canvas and colours like Blue, Yellow and Red you have infinite possibilities of making
anything out of it, You have a chance to discover, to evolve. If you draw a picture of a Dog and if it’s not your dog, like the dog of your imagination, than it doesn’t express you. It is about finding your way of expressing, developing your own language. It was about Creating your own creation no matter if it’s Meaningful or Meaningless. It was about Painting without borders. Probably this is why Pablo Picasso once said I want to paint like a child.

– Anushka Sarkate

Second day of Natya vachan spardha turned out to be a shift to family stories. We can safely say that caste, family and religion were the highlights of the day. ‘Dhadpad’ (ILS college) was performed first followed by ‘Dusra Samna’ (Aakar, Pune) and ‘Kurban’ (ILS college). One more thing that stood out today was – atmospheric sound. ‘Dhadpad’ and ‘Kurban’ focused on atmosphere too along with text. There were animal sound, songs, dholki and many more noise details created through voice, just so we can reach close to the story.’Dhadpad’, a play taking place in rural Maharashtra showed horrific effects of forced marriages we (sadly) still tolerate in our society. It also showed biased face of the society. How adults ‘contribute’ in every decision younger generation tries to make, even something as important as marriage.

‘Dusra Samna’ dealt with politics, caste and love. Just like the first one, in here too, we saw how parents tries to take control over children’s life. ‘Dusra Samna’ also brought dirty politics, bribe and centralized power into the picture. Small town politics was not far away from the real picture we see. Even the story took place in rural setting, the issue it brought was quiet contemporary and relevant to everyone.

Third play, ‘Kurban’, again a family story focused more on religion. It’s a story of small muslim family and terrible consequences they face just because of their religion. We hear these stories everywhere. Innocent people get killed each day and maybe that’s why we’ve become numb towards it. ‘Kurban’ showed a muslim moholla getting attacked because of religion riots and how family tries to survive it by sailing away through sea.

– Sanket Bagul

The masterclass by Prof. Bajaj was facilitated over two days. Prof. Bajaj explained to the students how nature helps one become a good actor; animals use more vowels to convey their emotions. He talked about our senses and how they work together to react; how eyes, just by looking at some material, can tell if it is hard or smooth. It is all about making the senses strong. When any sensory organ senses something, one must observe how other sensory organs react to that. While talking about the purification of emotions, he shared that a good actor is like arampuri chaku – within a second, they can change their emotions. To make this happen, “Apko kisi ped ki dali tuti tobhi dukh hona chahiye,” he said. He conducted some exercises about contraction and expansion of the body, changing the leading point of the body, and shifting of emotions.

-Sushrut Mulavekar