Staying Connected #6 | From Page to Stage - Brhannala and Tichee 17 Prakarane | May 13, 2020

Do you miss the excitement of attending a live performance? The soulful connections you made at auditoriums, galleries, black-boxes, and the amphitheatre? The multiple interpretations that arise out of stimulating post-show conversations? 

While we wish you many more such happier returns in a safer future, the Staying Connected Series by India Foundation for the Arts (IFA) continues to bring you the work of our grantees that we hope you will like engaging with. Today we would like to present before you, the work of two contemporary theatre groups best known for their innovative performance styles and daring exploits of complex themes - Brhannala by Adishakti Laboratory For Theatre Art Research and Tichee 17 Prakarane by Aasakta Kalamanch.

Adishakti Laboratory For Theatre Art Research is a contemporary theatre research and repertory company near Pondicherry, India. Their play titled Brhannala which premiered in 1999 takes inspiration from the Mahabharatha and focuses on the episode where Arjuna spends a year disguised as a woman. Performed to an original score composed by the late Veenapani Chawla, it looks at the consequences of Arjuna’s choices and views it as a dissolution of rigid binary oppositions. The belief that every human being possesses opposing qualities within oneself is the premise of the play. Click here to watch the play on their youtube channel.
 
In addition to the play, click here to watch a film titled Theatre: Classical meets Contemporary by IFA, and click here to read a book by IFA's ex-Trustee, Shanta Gokhale, to know more about the life and work of the late Veenapani Chawla, theatre actor, director, choreographer who is also the founder of the laboratory.

Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research received grants from India Foundation for the Arts (IFA), under Arts Collaboration, New Performance, and Arts Research and Documentation programmes. 

Aasakta Kalamanch is a group of contemporary theatre performers based in Pune. Their play titled Tichee 17 Prakarane is an adaption of Attempts on Her Life by the British playwright Martin Crimp. This Marathi play created in collaboration with four directors - Alok Rajwade, Nipun Dharmadhikari, Sarang Sathaye, Varun Narvekar, premiered in 2010 and is  based on a woman's multiple identities and relationships. It comprises seventeen fragmented scenarios in which a variety of people talk about Aashi, a ghost-like and polymorphous character, who possesses multiple identities. The play explores the perpetual unease and crisis of identity in contemporary Maharashtrian society. Click here to watch the play with English subtitles.

Aasakta Kalamanch received a grant from India Foundation for the Arts, under the  New Performance programme.