For creation of a production on ‘The Hare and Tortoise’, which will combine theatre and shadow puppetry. Through constant improvisations and experiments with the puppets, a script––which also looks at other famous races and a few imagined ones, with characters from Indian epics as also from other cultures––will be further developed and layered. Members of the theatre group will also train under resource persons from various traditional forms to develop the content of the production.
For creation of a theatre production that will bring to light the suppressed history, subculture and marginalised lives of the mill workers of Mumbai, who lost their jobs en masse as a result of the textile strike in the 1980s. The mill workers once exercised a very strong influence on Mumbai’s culture but their plight has largely been ignored in the raging public debate and legal battles over the future development of the mill lands. The production will be shown to mainstream audiences as well as working class communities in the mill lands area and elsewhere.
For the further development of a new performance form called Versedance. Three short pieces of dance-theatre, based on poems by Rainer Maria Rilke, Amrita Preetam Singh and Jibonananda Das, will be created and performed in Kolkata. The pedagogical possibilities Versedance will also be explored with students at two universities in the city.
