Avyahat
An Unstoppabble wheel
Based on Amita Kanekar’s English novel, A Spoke In The Wheel (2014), ‘Avyahat’ (meaning continuous) is set in the third century BC after the brutal Kalinga war wherein the undisputed ruler of the Magadha kingdom, Ashoka, is gradually increasing his influence on the Sangha – the Buddhist monastic order. The play unfolds the conflict between the state and its subjects and the threats that absolute concentration of power through religious sanction poses to the freedom of people.
Avyahat is produced by Hauns Sangeet Natya Mandal, a Goa-based theatre company, established in 1950 by Vishwanath Naik. Over the last seven decades, Hauns has produced numerous plays and has performed in Goa as well as other parts of India. It was adjudged as the Best Cultural Organisation by the Directorate of Art and Culture, Goa in the year 2014 for its unparalleled contribution towards Goa’s cultural scene.
I was invited to join the production as a Production Assistant at the International Theatre Festival Of Kerala (ITFOK) 2020 shows. My role in the production was to manage and coordinate (set fabrication and technicals) with the ITFOK officials on behalf of the company. My prior experience at the festival came in handy while working on this production.
Performance studies collective
Performance Studies Collective is a Delhi-based performance art and studies gathering engaged in the act of producing socially & spatially engaging performances that cross the borders of various art streams.
The aim of the group is to critically engage with the field of performance as a truly inter-disciplinary practice bringing in musicians, dancers, writers, actors, directors, and academicians from across the country and abroad in order to create performances that at once push the boundaries of form and content. The idea is to challenge the existing notions of theatre and performance and push towards a new and unique language of performance that positively contributes towards broadening the horizons of Indian performance culture.
The majority of the members of the group are the graduates, students, and professors of postgraduate performance studies program of School of Culture & Creative Expressions- Ambedkar University in Delhi. Over the past five years the collective has come up with several critically acclaimed contemporary, experimental performances like Little Prince, Project Nostalgia, It’s Cold in Here, The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, Work in Progress and Dark Things.
I have been closely associated with the collective as a core member taking up several responsibilities of the collective; such as organizing meetings, managing set materials and properties of the collective, transport, etc.
Mistri labs
Mistri Labs is an Uttarakhand-based start-up that is dedicated to alternate skill-based education and art. The primary focus of the company has been on exploration and representation of the Uttarakhand culture as well as providing resources for the community to produce art. The company has set up a maker-space (woodworking, robotics & filmmaking) in the Nainital district of Uttarakhand and regularly organizes residences for artists and students of the community. They also provide workshops for students in several schools around the region. Along with these, Mistri Labs Films, the film division of the company is also involved in producing short films and corporate advertisement videos.
Having worked in one of their short film productions (Khurafat), I was invited to kick start a new theatre division for the company. While I was there, I worked as a theatre/acting trainer, mentoring students both in theatre-making and film making. I also assisted in several woodworking workshops and corporate advertisement shoots. The Workshops culminated with students making their own short performances and films enabling them to tell their own stories.
Centre for community knowledge(cck)
The Centre for Community Knowledge (CCK) is an interdisciplinary research centre, housed in the Kashmere Gate campus of Ambedkar University Delhi. It aimed at studying different living communities in India, their cultural knowledge heritage and their interrelations.
Academically, the centre collaborates in implementing a variety of field programs ranging from oral history to aspects of traditional knowledge. It has forayed into field-based research that contributes to bridging the gap between formal (codified) and oral (uncodified) knowledge.
Alongside adding to the corpus of academic knowledge from a socio-cultural and lived histories' perspective, with regard to oral and local community knowledge and learning, the Centre's activities aim to create access to cultural and intellectual resources that enlarge the vision of historicity, entangle power relations between information sources of lived cultures and offer local wisdom and insight into elements of histories that remain overshadowed by established meta-narratives.
I began working with CCK as an intern while I was doing my masters from Ambedkar university. As an intern, I was primarily involved in the Institutional Memory Archives, an archiving initiative that began by CCK to document the University's growth, setbacks, and expansion. My work involved documentation (video/photo) of various events at the university and logging and editing (video) of the archives. At the time I also designed orientation programs for freshmen at college organized by CCK. Later, I went on to be employed as a designer for an exhibition project (Objects Identities Meanings) and also worked on a community radio initiative which unfortunately did not take off due to other bureaucratic reasons.
Roobaroo
Roobaroo is a Delhi-based independent theatre group (currently inactive) formed by theatre enthusiastic students and pass outs of various institutes and few professionals.
The aim of the group was to enable its members to develop a professional skill set of theatre-making by producing off-campus works. Two original works were produced every year and performed at several stages within and outside Delhi. Bandi, What The!, Khusar Phusar, I Killed Roy Mathily, and Cafestorea, 3 Janak Rd are some of the successful Productions of Roobaroo which I have worked on as an actor and stagehand. Apart from these I also worked on several street plays, crowdfunding campaigns and on several theatre workshops organized by the group across schools in Delhi.
Working with Roobaroo was my first experience working in a professional theatre outside of college that encouraged me to recognize my drive for theatre and go forward and seriously consider a career in Theatre.