How Cow Now Cow
Director: Vinod Ravindran
Group: Sandbox Collective, Bangalore
Language: English
Duration: 1hr

About the Group
Sandbox Collective is a creative services organisation that curates, produces and tours performances. It acts as a catalyst facilitating meaningful collaborations nationally and internationally between artists, cultural agencies and arts spaces creating an explosion of innovative artistic expression.

About the Play
Rosamma the Cow is fast turning into an unbearable pain. She scolds, rants and raves, and makes life miserable for all the other animals on the beautiful farm. Find out what happens to Rosamma when she’s sent off to a mysterious country far, far away. A group of actors combine storytelling, object theatre, and shadow puppetry to tell a compelling tale of patience, love, adventure, and imagination.

Director
Vinod Ravindran has worked in the theatre in various capacities. He started his career in theatre with B. Jayashree’s Spandana Theatre in Bangalore. As an actor he has worked with directors like B. Jayshree, Atul Kumar, Ajay Krishnan, Manav Kaul, Abhishek Majumdar, Kirtana Kumar and Sachin Gurjale. He wrote and directed Somewhat like a Balloon which opened at the Jagriti Curtain Raisers 2013, he wrote and directed Raja Tantra Choo Mantra, a play for children which opened at the AHA, Ranga Shankara International Theatre Festival for children. He also directed Ajay Krishnan’s Touching and Moving.

Director’s Note
Stories are everywhere and everyone has a story… and we can tell stories together. What worked most importantly for us about How Cow Now Cow is the simplicity of the story. We wanted to work on this play in a way that it leaves enough space for our audience to have questions and thoughts. That is what keeps us excited about this play. We are often asked questions about the play that we ourselves have never thought about. We used common every-day household objects to bring the story to life. The play uses a now archaic technology of the overhead projector (OHP). The rudimentary nature of the OHP technology and the physical interaction that is required to bring images to life is the kind of rawness that we wanted in the play.

Cast & Credits
On Stage
Anirudh Mahesh
Shweta Desai
Vinod Ravindran

Off Stage
Light Design and Execution     Parthasarathi S
Producers                                     Sandbox Collective

Direction            Vinod Ravindran

Contacts
Beagles Loft
37/5, 2nd Floor, Yellappa Chetty Layout
Ulsoor Road
Bangalore – 560042
M: +91 9686865638
E: sandbox.medha@gmail.com

She Stood Up
Writer & Director: Zubin Mehta
Group: Wings Theatre Academy & Vivek High School, Chandigarh
Language: English, Hindi & Punjabi
Duration: 1 hr 25 mins

About the Group
Wings Theatre Academy was established in 2012. The aim of the academy was to give a platform to the students in and around Chandigarh, whereby they could hone their skills, grow as individuals, and work constantly to grow the faculties of their mind, while simultaneously opening up the world of theatre to a city still in the process of finding its pulse. The academy is currently 150 students strong, all of whom are in the age group of 7 to 30 yrs. The academy has staged over 20 annual plays in the last six years.

About the Play
She Stood Up, directed by Zubin Mehta, focuses on different aspects of school life. The story is about two girls who despite having different personalities and backgrounds come together, become good friends, and take little steps of courage to change people’s perspectives. They empower girls through a soccer match. It is a very simple, realistic and relatable story which comes with a strong message of motivation and courage to stand up for what is right, and of breaking gender stereotypes from an early age. While highlighting the above, it has light, innocent and humorous moments for the audience to enjoy. This play was devised with a lot of inputs and ideas from the young actors who come from various schools in and around Chandigarh. The cast of the play comprises entirely of children between the ages of 8 and 11 years, who have been training with Wings Theatre Academy at Vivek High School, over the last few years.

Director
Zubin Mehta, started his theatre journey at the age of 8 as a child artist. He travelled extensively to the interiors of Punjab to perform plays based on socially relevant topics, using theatre as a medium of social reform. In 2004 at the age of nineteen, Zubin was appointed as a theatre teacher by Yadavindra Public School, Mohali to establish a dramatics society which later became a part of the curriculum. During his tenure, he directed school productions, worked with children of various age groups and developed content for theatre workshops. In 2012, he founded Wings Theatre Academy. He has worked with more than 3000 actors – children, adolescents and young adults.

Director’s Note
The movement of Woman Empowerment has been gaining momentum in our country in the last decade, but we are still dealing with the horrors of Nirbhaya and Kathua. The real empowerment should happen at a young age. It is the young girls that we need to empower to make a significant difference. She Stood Up was devised with 45 students from 6 years to 12 years of age, studying in different schools of Chandigarh. We started the rehearsals with the wish to do something for young girls, but what and how, we had no idea. I sat with my young cast for the first few days and just explored the idea with them. I tried to gauge what was it that they wanted to share on the subject, what empowerment meant to these young children. Brainstorming happened for the next few days and we had the outline of our story with us. It was a simple story of a young girl fighting with the school authorities for something that she thought was her right.

Cast & Credits
On Stage
Chamanlal                      Eklavya Mogla
Satish                             Aditya Goyal
Saurabh                          Anhad Mogla
Sandhu Sir                      Kanwardeep Singh
Pranay’s father                Kevinpratap Singh Sidhu
Ravi Bhaiya                     Aarav Joshi
Lata                                 Kashish Aggarwal
Pooja                               Ridhi Ahluwalia
Promila                            Navika Singh
Ria                                   Saira Mamik
Birso                                 Paakhii
Principal                           Hiral Thakur
Mrs Subramaniam           Aahana Gupta
Mrs Chaddha                   Simer Suri
Miss Negi                        Kashish Dhingra
Mrs Misra                        Dia Lekhi
Mrs Shergill                     Rabbani Lehal
School Nurse                   Ishrat
Sunny Singh                    Abhaydeep Singh
Aakash                            Angad Singh Tur
Gurfateh                          Inderpal Singh
Pinky Singh                     Pranit Singh
Umang Shankar              Adhiraj Sehgal
Pranay                            Dev Pannu
Raghav Jain                   Samay
Param                            Sumeir Ahluwalia
Seerat                            Saanvi Kanwar
Pallavi                            Mishika Singh
Kaveri                            Aanvi Bahri
Mili Mittal                       Sohaya Aulakh
Pavni Chaddha             Aaina Chaddha
Jhanvi Goyal                 Mannat Verma
Priya Chauhan              Inayat Dhingra
Mrs Verma                    Kashvi Wadhwa
School children            Sidak Singh Talwar, Navya Singhal, Vaanya Pathak,
Rehmat Sandhu, Brinda Thamman, Meher Kumar, Sarah Setia,
Nikasha Luthra

Off Stage
Assistant Director                  Namita Chandhoke
Overall Coordination              Amrita Patti & Dashveen Kaur
Light Design & Execution      Zubin Mehta
Set Design                             Zubin Mehta
Background Music                 Manav Bhinder
Costumes                              Amrita Patti, Dashveen Kaur
Make-up                                Balaji
Backstage Assistance          Puneet
Produced by                         Wings Theatre Academy, Vivek High School, Chandigarh

Playwright,
Design & Direction               Zubin Mehta

Contacts
Wings Theatre Academy, Vivek High
Sector 38-B, Chandigarh- 160036
M: +919888577481; +918288040900
E: wingstheatreacademy@gmail.com

Dry Leaf
Director: Agung Gunawan
Group: Sampang Agung Centre for Performing Arts (SACPA), Indonesia
Language: Javanese
Duration: 1 hr

About the Group
Sampang Agung Centre for Performing Arts (SACPA) is located at Pelem village in East Java (Indonesia). The centre strives for the preservation of Javanese cultural heritage and traditions, and its members are committed to further exploration on new artistic ways of expression submerged within such heritage and also the contemporary arts. SACPA’s performers (known as Breathing Forest Dance Theatre) have been recognised by the unique movements in the choreography of their performances inspired by the day to day movements of the village and the interactions of humans, animals, spirits and nature. ‘Whiffling of the Forest Gamelan Ensemble’ is a music group formed in 2015 at SACPA. Under the direction and mentorship of the established musician and composer, Johan Adiyatma Baktiar, the ensemble offers distinctive and theatrical Javanese gamelan based music.

About the Play
A fallen leaf never hates the wind. It falls itself as it does. Never against anything, there is only sincere acceptance and surrender. Wisdom offered by the harmony of the four elements of nature – Fire, Wind, Water, and Earth – shapes the expressions and characters in the body. Nature as a human being sometimes becomes the axis of problems, while nature quietly and permanently creates peace. Lessons from the fallen leaf to understand peace – whenever it should fall it falls, whatever makes it fall, it lets it do so, and wherever it takes off, the leaf will not complain and accept what God gives.

Director
Born in 1971, Agung Gunawan is a renowned and established dancer, artistic director, choreographer and vocalist. Since the beginning of his career in 2006 as an independent solo dancer and choreographer, he has worked with many multi-disciplinary artists, in companies and projects both inside and outside Indonesia.
He was a founder and artistic director of the Arts Island Festival from 2010 to 2014, and of Pelem Festival since 2016. His motivation to create the festivals was a manifestation of his conviction that “If they are not accessible to the poor, the arts are neither innovative nor revolutionary”. This belief has been the pillar of his daily practice. Currently, he is based in the rural village in East Java, as a co-director of SACPA, and a choreographer of ‘Breathing Forest Dance Theatre’ while continuously touring numerous countries for performances and projects.

Director’s Note
After having undergone years of intensive training and performances as a Yogyakarta classical court dancer in Indonesia, I moved to the country side in East Java, named Pelem village in 2008. At first, I felt that traditional dance and theatre performance in the village had not been refined and was edgy. However, it struck me that their dance was full of energy, intensity and power of human creativity of arts. I sat in the forest for hours, searching for the meaning of the relationship between art and life, myself and nature, and nature and local people – now our people. A leaf is such a symbolic and artistic metaphor for me – it grows, and turns brown, and falls as it is. It is such a simple, peaceful life which casts a question to me. What is it behind the last moment of the leaf, not complaining and in total surrender? How does this relate to us, human beings?

Cast & Credits
On Stage
Performers (Breathing Forest Dance Theatre)
Anes Ayu Pratiwik
Ariesta Maharani
May Widhiyastuti
Yasinta Wenda Mulasari
Fitria Dania Julianti
Umi Royani
Very Muharyanti
Windiasari
Musicians (Whiffling of the Forest Gamelan Ensemble)
Anang Setiawan
Aryasa Yusuf Pratama
Deasylina da Ary
Diana Nur Hayati
Johan Adiyatma Baktiar
Anik Puji Rahayu
Agung Gunawan

Off Stage
Operation Manager Takashi Takiguchi
Production Assistant Kien Fei Lee

Design & Direction Agung Gunawan

Contacts
Sampang Agung Centre for Performing Arts (SACPA)
Jln. Punung-Gondosari Km 6,5
Krajan 1, Pelem, Pringkuku, Pacitan, Jawa Timur, Indonesia, 63552
M: +61 478 634 052 (English)
M: +62 823 28282801 (Indonesian)
E: info@takashitakiguchi.com
W: https://sacpa-pelem.com
Media/Enquiry: Takashi Takiguchi (ImPermanence Productions)

Nine-day little actor’s theatre festival Jashnebachpan begins

• Around 500 artists from across the globe will be a part of the fest.
• Children from Sri Lanka and Indonesia will showcase their art form
• 10 directors are making debut this time at Jashnebachpan
• Seminar will be held to discuss the importance of theatre in children 

New Delhi, November 17, 2018: With a colourful representation of the various folk dance and music from the diverse states of India including Assam, Rajasthan, Punjab and Manipur under the guidance of Dr. Laique Hussain, National School of Drama today inaugurated the much-awaited biannual theatre festival for children, Jasnebachpan, at the lush green lawns of the campus amid much fanfare.

The grand opening ceremony of the 14^th edition of the theatre carnival saw the presence of Shri Arun Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Culture and eminent theatre personality-director Shri Rudraprasad Sengupta. Also present were Dr Arjun Deo Charan, Acting Chairman NSD, Suresh Sharma, director-in-charge, NSD, and Abdul latif Khatana, Chief TIE Co.

Shri Arun Goel said festivals like Jashnebachchan help them to develop their personality.

 “I congratulate the National School of Drama for organising the 14^th edition of the international theatre festival for children. Besides organizing festivals for children, they also organise various short term courses like Sunday Club, which is a very good initiative. Theatre is something which is not given to us by the colonial powers, rather it is our own art form which was born in our own land and has been practiced since ages,”Arun Goel said.

 Shri Rudraprasad Sengupta, who was one of the guest of honours at the event, dedicated the recognition bestowed to him to the various theatre workers in the country.

“I am thankful to my NSD friends for honouring me. I don’t know whether I am worthy of this honour. But I am glad to receive the honour. I am accepting this honour on behalf of all the theatre workers, who probably don’t have money to give shape to their craft. Theatre is expensive and it needs money more money than any other art form because it doesn’t depend upon technology. Man power is involved in every stage,”Rudraprasad Sengupta highlighted.

 Dr Arjun Deo Charan pointed out why theatre is important in a child’s life.

“Theatre plays an important role in children’s life because it raises the observation power in a child. As plays are mostly based on the issues of our society, therefore it raises awareness among the kids and enable them to become a responsible citizen,” said Arjun Deo Charan.

Abdul Latif Khatana shared the highlights of this year’s Jashnebachpan.

“We have plays talking about various issues be it gender discrimination or parent-child relationship. We also have theatrical interpretation of Ramayana and Alice & Wonderland. This time we have three-year old play group to 133-year old play group,”he said.

Suresh Sharma said, “Ministry of Culture has allotted Rs 180 crore for the betterment of NSD. We have also proposed the formation of four new Sanskar Rang Toli and we are assured that ministry will help us in expanding theatre across the country.”

The opening ceremony act titled as Udaan was comprised of four presentations by groups — Thangata Pung Cholam (Manipur), Kalboliya (Rajasthan), Gotipua (Odisha) and Bhangra/folksong (Punjab). Even folk dances from Assam (Bihu), Sikkim (Lion Dance), Nagaland (Kabul Naga Dance) and Manipur (Stick Balance) were received with loud applause from audience.

Almost 800 underprivileged kids from various NGOs across Delhi and NCR attended and enjoyed the opening ceremony. The idea behind this initiative was to bring those children to the mainstream and inculcate enthusiasm for art and culture along with entertainment at a global platform.

Debuted in 1998, Jashnebachpan, is a venture of T.I.E Company of NSD, started in order to contribute to the growth and development of children’s theatre across the country. Post its successful stint year after year; it has now become one of the largest and most important theatre festivals in India for children. This year 23 plays will be staged in the four auditoriums – Sammukh, Abhimanch, Abhikalp and Little Theatre Group (LTG).

Tathagat is
A play presented by Jana Natya Manch is written and directed by Abhishek Majumdar. Music is by M.D. Pallvi

Set in an imaginary Buddhist kingdom in ancient India, Tathagat explores the ideas of caste and gender, rebellion and nationalism, freedom and courage.

Haridas, a shudra sculptor, has carved a statue of Buddha out of black stone with three missing fingers. He is sentenced to death as a traitor. On insistence of the queen, the king agrees to listen to Haridas’s plea in the court.

Expanding on the idea of tark (reason) in Buddhist philosophy, this play through the story of a vain king, a defiant queen, the rebellious sculptor, a courageous daasi, and a conniving courtier, examines the difference between a ‘traitorous’ and a ‘rebellious’ act.

Hindi, approx. 35 mins

Two shows of _Tathagat_ coming up that you can catch:
– Tuesday 14 Aug, 1 pm, AUD Kashmiri Gate Campus.
– Thursday 16 Aug, 6 pm, Sabarmati Hostel, JNU.
_Tathagat_ is Jana Natya Manch’s latest production, written and directed by Abhishek Majumdar, with music by MD Pallavi.

About Theatre Olympics
The Theatre Olympics was established in 1993 at Delphi, Greece. As an international theatre
festival, the Theatre Olympics presents some of the greatest theatre practitioners from
around the world, offering a platform where despite ideological, culture and language
differences, dialogue is encouraged. Since 1993, the Theatre Olympics has been held seven
times in: Japan (1999), Russia (2001), Turkey (2006), South Korea (2010), China (2014), and
Poland (2016).

17th February 2018: Imprinting her name in the global theatre map, India on this day
threw the floor open to the 8th Theatre Olympics, the largest theatre festival of the world,
being hosted for the first time in India by the National School of Drama, under the aegis of
Ministry of Culture, Government of India. Shri Venkaiah Naidu, Hon’ble Vice President of
India, along with Union Minister of State for Culture (IC) Dr. Mahesh Sharma, inaugurated
the mega event at the historic Red Fort.

“The 8 th Theatre Olympics will take Indian culture and heritage to the world and bring the
world to us. Art has the power to unite people across the globe. India believes in the culture
of Vasudhaiva Kutumbakam which means the entire universe is one, which is an integral part
of the Indian cultural and theatrical tradition,” said Vice President of India Shri Venkaiah
Naidu on the occasion

“Through the 8 th Theatre Olympics, we meet the rich theatrical tradition of India and we
encourage the articulation of a free and collective voice which will defend the value of the
theatre tradition, research, and experimentation,” said Chairman of International
Committee of Theatre Olympics, Mr. Theodoros Terzopoulos.on the occasion

The video film, prepared by students of IIIT, Delhi, shows some of the major highlights of the festival including glimpses of Directors Meet in which Theatre Directors interacted with Theatre Critics, Theatre Students, Theatre Buffs a day after the show and so many other highlights like the Food and Theatre Bazar. It captures the festive ambience of the event

Theatre Olympics: First time in India