Bharat Rang Mahotsav

1)Play: Journey for Freedom (Devised Performance)

Director: Pravin Kumar Gunjan
Group: The Fact Art & Cultural Society, Begusarai, Bihar
Language: Hindi
Duration: 1 hr 10 mins

Play

Human Nature is strongly bound by its own desires and tendencies, but in these times the idea of "living the life'" is distorted. We have now been abandoned in the cage of our so-called selves, and the 㓯litude of the Self䠴hat is spoken about is so strong that we have become enslaved to it. And it is in a search for freedom from this sense of solitude and selfhood that the journey of this performance has been undertaken. This is a journey which is full of the stench of a bifurcated Humanity, of rotten ideas of Philosophy, and a hub-like crowd, against which the deadly silence of selfhood exists. The group claims no specific idea, no definite solution to emerge from this production. It is perplexed by and seeks to explore the idea of 㔯tal Freedom䠦orall of Humanity, without violating the circle of Others.

Director

An alumnus of NSD with a specialization in design and direction, and a B.A (Hons) in dramatic arts from Lalit Narayan Mithila University, Pravin Kumar Gunjan started his theatre activities as an actor from a village in Bihar. Founder-Director of ᔨe Fact Art & Cultural Society', Begusarai Bihar, he has directed several plays like Macbeth, Andhayug, Men Without Shadow A Midsummer Night Dream,༩>Hanush, Final Solution, The Dream of Gandhi,үshomon, and so on. Some of his plays have also been staged at different theatre festivals around the county, including at the SangeetNatakAkademi Theatre Festival and NSDⳠBharat Rang Mahotsav. He has worked with several renowned actors, directors and theatre practitioners from India and abroad, and is currently known as a director, writer, light designer and acting instructor,༯i>In 2006 Mr. Gunjan received the Pravin Smriti Samman for his contribution to theatre, and in 2012 he was awarded the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Award for Best Director for the play Samjhouta. He is also a recipient of the Bhikari Thakur Yuva Rang Samman given by the Government of Bihar.

2)Play: Meghnath Badh Kabya  (Based on the verses of Michael Madhusudan Dutt)

Playwright & Director: Manish Mitra

Group: Kasba Arghya, Kolkata, West Bengal
Language: Bengali & some Sanskrit
Duration: 1 hr 50 mins [including a 10 min interval]

Play:

Meghnad Badh Kabya (The Saga of Meghnad's Killing) is the most famous and most acclaimed poem by the poet Michael Madhusudan Dutta, in which he is said to have expressed "All the stormiest passions of man's soul婮 gigantic language." Instead of following the mythological tradition of portraying Ram and Lakshman as divine beings and Ravana and Meghnad as monsters, the poet saw the last two as moral, courageous, patriotic beings who put up a valiant resistance to Ram's invasion of Sri Lanka. At Ram's behest, and fortified by the blessings of the Goddess Mahamaya, Lakshman used magic to enter the sanctum sanctorum of Nikumbhila with Bibhishan, where Meghnad sat performing the rites before going to war. As the norms prohibited Meghnad from using weapons until the rite was completed, he fought, unarmed, with Lakshman who was armed. As the battle progressed Meghnad suddenly realized that the gods were raining flowers on his opponent. Finally, he was slain by Lakshman.

Playwright & Director:

Manish Mitra is a young playwright/director of Bengali theatre. Inspired to take up theatre during his college days, he joined შaranik⠡nd later founded ၲghya⠷ith the objective of providing a platform that would enable the youth of the country to exchange their creative and intellectual views. The group aims at addressing various social evils through theatre activities. He is specially inclined towards working with folk elements and has initiated his group into extensive research on folklores of the Sunderbans and the Purulia district of West Bengal. Mr. Mitra has worked with a number of international theatre personalities such as Eugenio Barba and Thomaes Rodowich; has directed plays like Ekla, Saat Kahan Pala, Simar, Chandrabati, Bharatkatha,Raktakarabi, Kathagaan, ༯i>and Maa Nishaad and has also received the Dishari Award for directing Shesh Roopkatha. He is presently a research scholar working on BharataⳠNatyashastra and the oral epics of India revolving around the Mahabharata. He is a Senior Research Fellow of the Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, and is the recipient of the Dishari Award for directing Shesh Roopkatha and the Zee Bangla Award for Best Director for his play Meghnad Badhkavya in 2011.

 3)Play: Sarpa Sutra  (Based on verses adapted from the poem Sarpa Sutra by Arun Kolatkar and Veda VyasaⳠMahabharata)

Script & Direction: Dr. Gowri Ramnarayan
Group: JustUs Repertory, Chennai, Tamil Nadu
Language: English, with verses in Sanskrit, Tamil & Telugu
Duration: 1 hr 30 mins

The Play
Sarpa Sutra brings together theatre, dance and music in an allegorical revenge cycle that mirrors our lives and times. Two versions of the same story unfold one by the magisterial Veda Vyasa (Sanskrit), the other by a sardonic Arun Kolatkar (English). Spurred on by Agni, the fire god, superhero Arjuna (with arch trickster Krishna) destroys the Khandava forest. Losing his wife and his entire forest kingdom, serpent king Takshaka assassinates Parikshit, Arjuna's grandson. Parikshit's son Janamejaya performs a colossal sacrifice to destroy the whole race of snakes. Serpent woman Jaratkaru urges her son Astika to stop the genocide. Can Astika save the planet?


Playwright & Director
Dr.Gowri Ramnarayan is a veteran writer and journalist with a lifetimeⳠcontribution to Indian performing arts, literature, and culture. She worked for 22 years with the national
daily newspaper The Hindu (1989-2010), and served for over a decade as vocal accompanist to legendary Carnatic classical vocalist, MS Subbulakshmi. She has a PhD in comparative aesthetics from the University of Madras; has translated 2 plays by the award-winning dramatist Vijay Tendulkar; and has been a member of the Fipresci Jury of critics at international film festivals in London, Venice, Valladolid, Oslo and Mumbai. Her first play, Dark Horse, won 2 national-level Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards in 2007. In 2005, Dr. Ramnarayan founded JustUs Theatre Repertory, whose plays and productions have been staged at significant venues and performance festivals in major Indian cities, and her productions have featured several leading performing artistes of India. In 2011, Dr. Ramnarayan has presented a series of lectures and workshops on her multi-genre work in theatre at a number of national and international universities. Her most recent work includes 3 new productions - Sakhi, Yashodhara and Night's End - selections from the last of which were introduced by her and read by Swedish actors at the Women Playwrights' International Conference in Stockholm, organized by theatre companies in Sweden, Palestine and Lebanon.

4)Play: Sangeet Maanapman
Playwright: Late K. P. Khadilkar
Director: Nipun Dharmadhikari
Group: Raahen, Pune, Maharashtra
Language: Marathi
Duration: 2 hrs 30 mins
Play
The play revolves around Dairyadhar, a trusted lieutenant of King Prithvidhar, whose marriage has been fixed with Bhamini, the daughter of affluent Babasaheb. Dhairyadhar does not crave for a luxurious life, and is known for his courage and values. Out of respect for Babasaheb, he gives his assent to the proposed alliance with Bhamini. But Bhamini is not in favour of this union with a poor Dhaiyadhar and walks out of the alliance even without meeting him. Later on, on BabasahebⳠinsistence, she starts living incognito as a poor Vanmala so as to observe and get to know more about Dhairyadhar. While interacting with him as Vanmala, Bhamini recognizes the sterling character that he possesses and also realizes her own blunders in giving undue importance to money. She begins to love him with Dhairayadhar too reciprocating, but unaware of her true identity. The play ends on a happy note with Babasaheb solving the mystery and helping the couple unite in marriage.

Music is one of the main highlights of the play, and most of its songs have become immensely popular.  3D animation and open-ended music tracks have been used to re-create and revive the playⳠoriginal magic on stage.

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DirectorⳠNote
Directing a ᓡngeet Natak⠩s always a tricky job. First and foremost, you have to walk the tight rope of the nostalgia and the fond memories of the ᧯lden period⠯n one hand, and on the other hand make it interesting for the fast-track generation of today.
It is always exciting to take responsibility of a timeless classic. They provide a healthy mix of great music, great dialogue and dramatic situations.
When I first read the five-ac script of the play, I could almost imagine the grandeur visualized by the writer. How to bring it on stage was a huge challenge, as it was slated to be performed all over on a 30 ft by 25 ft stage, with 20 on-stage characters. That was when I decided to use 3D animations to try and bring in the grandeur. It was a major risk as the audience is very particular about almost every aspect and could have rejected this idea. So far, the public has favoured this production and I am thankful to them.


5) Performance: Stroll
Category: Allied Event
Group: Oorja Performers, New Delhi
Director: Moon Moon Singh
Adapted from: the works of ShakespeareⳠHamlet, LorcaⳠYerma, and Harold PinterⳠBlack and White
Language: English
Duration: 2 hours

Performance
Stroll宩n寵t塊looped performative exploration of contemporary relationships, undertaken through text, movement, dance, sound and space.
ShakespeareⳠOphelia, LorcaⳠYerma, and PinterⳠunnamed girl in an urban caf鮠They are bound by a common chord the need to express female desire, and to open themselves to vulnerability and strength.
The performance of Stroll continues in a loop across two sites an indoor space and an outdoor space, connected by a passage. The indoor site is a confrontational space in which the bodies of the performers map contemporary relationships, exploring the nature of different human relationships, and the hierarchies and power structures within them, through the means of spatial difference, and through traces of movement and sound across the grid of the space. The outdoor site is a liberating space in which the drowning of the woman signifies the death of one persona and the birth of another. It also marks the end of one cycle and the beginning of another in the loop of the performance.
DirectorⳠNote
The stimuli behind this piece are the study of Haiku, the jo-ha-kyu, the Yin-Yang/In-Yo, and  㳩lence and stillness.伯font>
This performance piece is strictly based on the concept of jo-ha-kyu, the rhythmic structure followed in traditional Japanese Ꭿh Theatre.⠉n the initial section which is Hamlet, all actions form one unit and begin in an easy manner signifying Jo (beginning). This initially is performed in slowness, 㼩>Stillness and Silence.伯i> In the second section, Yerma develops dramatically signifying Ha (middle), and the final section Black and White picks up rhythm rapidly signifying the Kyu (end).
The inside space of the performance highlights ZeamiⳠYin-Yang theory that holds that oppositions co-exist in all phenomena. With this equation, we have been able to play out power hierarchies and struggle for balance by utilizing and preserving the opposites in each of the stories. In Hamlet, the love theology between the soft-tone of Ophelia is opposed by her rigid, hard idealistic father. In Yerma, the craving for a child in a female is opposed by her stone-hearted husband. And in Black and White, the vulnerable girl with her complexities is opposed and confronted by her more confident friend.
This performance enables the audience space, time, freedom, opportunity for reflection that could lead to individual interpretation.

Santosh Kumar

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