Varoon P Anand

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will investigate the existing practices, patterns and problems in the context of safety in performing arts through the lens of individual practitioners working with formal or quasi-formal theatre groups, collectives and institutions in India. Varoon P. Anand is the Coordinator for this project. 

Varoon P. Anand is a theatre-maker, improviser and arts manager. He began his theatre career in 2006 at Panama’s oldest community, Theatre Guild of Ancón, where he co-founded Improv8. Varoon has received the 2018 Refunction grant (Goethe- Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan), the 2019 Gender Bender Performing Arts grant, co-received the 2021 Connections to Culture (as part of Intercut Labs, British Council), and the 2022 C3: Codes, Creativity, Communities grant. He has received multiple commissions from the Embassy of Spain, the Embassy of Argentina, the Embassy of Ecuador, and the Embassy of Perú. Since 2018, Varoon has been developing safety and language training modules through applied improvisation. To this research project, he brings the experience of developing arts-based approaches to mental wellness through improvisation with the help of mental health practitioners. Varoon leads Kaivalya Plays, a Delhi-based independent theatre company that specialises in applied improvisation and adaptation of foreign-language texts. Due to his vast experience working across diverse social and cultural contexts, Varoon is best suited to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA. Gaurav Singh Nijjer, General Manager with the Kaivalya Plays, will be Varoon’s collaborator on the project.  

The project will focus on the aspects of physical, mental and legal safety and well-being of actors, directors, facilitators and designers and their audiences. It will advocate for safety as a continuous, highly personalised practice that is neither a one-size-fits-all approach nor a set of rigid ever-evolving rules but something contextual and personalised to the needs of the individual practitioner or the group. The primary research objectives include: investigating existing safety practices in urban contemporary theatre set up across six major state capitals taking theatre groups established post-1995 in each of these cities as case studies; understanding the extent of relevance and causation between taboo and hesitation around safety, and the thread of guru-shishya relationship between directors and actors or theatre facilitators and participants in the Indian scenario; and exploring tools, mechanisms and guidelines through which practitioners can assess, define and practice a culture of safety for their respective groups.

The project will opt for two modes of enquiry - firstly, documented case study interviews with contemporary theatre groups, collectives and institutions from six different cities, and secondly an in-depth questionnaire survey filled by 300 performing arts professionals across India to inform the areas and scenarios of safety that are most critical to the real-world needs and functioning of the practitioners. Safety sessions will be conducted with controlled groups of practitioners to understand whether the above mechanisms to assess, define and implement safety in their respective groups are feasible.  

The outcomes of this project will be a publicly accessible resource library containing safety kits, checklists, video tutorials, sample contracts and a digitally accessible forum for anonymous grievance redressal. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be links to the publicly accessible library and digitally accessible forum, checklists, video tutorials and sample contracts.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Research programme in the manner in which it attempts to address the urgent need for contemporary urban theatre to be safe and brave spaces that nurture its practitioners. 

IFA will ensure that the project is implemented on time and the funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is complete and deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with the Trustees.

This project is supported by BNP Paribas India.