Nirmala Ravindran

Nirmala Ravindran has worked in the theatre in various capacities of an actor, director and producer for nearly 20 years. With a special interest in arts education, she has conducted workshops in art, writing, story-telling and theatre for children and young adults in the age group of 7-14 in many schools. She has also designed an arts-in-education programme for a school in Kamshet, Maharashtra.

Through this project, Nirmala is interested to pursue with the children of the Government School at Siddapura-Tubrahalli, Bengaluru, a series of theatre and storytelling workshops that explores the multiple narratives of a story, its many voices and perspectives and various ways of telling. While at one hand it is a powerful tool in theatre exercise, on the other it will enable children to understand, tell and retell stories changing the mood and directions of the narrative structures.

Nirmala aims to use re-tellings and re-creation of stories in theatre as a tool in arts in education. This involves the re-interpretation of already existing stories, as well as the creation of new and original stories told from the perspective of the child. The process also involves theatre games and exercises in creating stories and role playing. The grant will result in a book containing stories created by the children through the ten-month long workshop. 

This grant was made possible with support from Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore and Citi India.