When: Monday, October 14^th ca. 20:00 – 21:30 (after the presentation of the research labs)
Where: Konferenzraum 1 at Podewil (Mitte)

Podium on theater for young audiences in India

For this year’s edition of FRATZ festival and symposium we had asked ThinkArts Kolkata to cooperate with the Theater o.N.-team in designing the program. Both organizations had been following each other in a friendly exchange for a few years and were curious about each other’s work. Working together on FRATZ we hope to deepen the bonds and foster more projects and exchange between artists from India, Germany and the international children’s theater scene.

The team of ThinkArts curated the play “Hanv Gara Asa” (I am home) from Goa for the festival program and set up a digital Master class for practitioners based in India from which the two participants of this year’s FRATZ research laboratories evolved. After the presentation of their results and the sharing of their findings at Tanzstudio on Monday night we will have the chance to learn more about the landscape of theater for young audiences in India and enter into a conversation with Nishna Mehta, programmer and dramaturge of ThinkArts and member of the board of ASSITEJ India, Sananda Mukhopadhyaya, director of “Hanv Gara Asa”, theatremaker, art educator, and curator based in Mumbai, Samiksha Sawant, Ariedon Gomes and Krishna Gawas, performers of the production “Hanv Gara Asa” and Swapnika Reddy and Sidharth Varma, participants of the research laboratories.

The event will take place in English spoken language. A simultaneous translation into German will be offered.

 

Biographies of participating artists

Nishna Mehta is an MA in Theatre for Young Audiences. She has been working with and for children and young people from various backgrounds and abilities in India, Singapore, England, Ireland and Germany since 2012.
Currently, she is the Creative Consultant for the Performing Arts Programme at The Gateway School of Mumbai, Project Consultant with ThinkArts, Kolkata, Assistant Director for a production for NCPA Connections and Lead Researcher for ASSITEJ International’s Global Advocacy Focused Research Project with a focus on Diversity in Leadership in Theatre for Young Audiences.
She wishes to share the magic and joy of theatre with young people that she experienced as a child. Her mantra of doing theatre is “Make it happen”. She wishes to reach young people across age groups, backgrounds and abilities throughout the world. She aims to bring her local and international experiences together in order to find a 'glocal' identity.

Sananda Mukhopadhyaya is a theatremaker, art-based educator, and curator based in Mumbai, India. She has since been regularly creating work for the early years since 2017. Her works explore materials, movement, and musicality. She enjoys using the site of making a play as a key influence. Her plays thus are anchored culturally to a particular place through material, spoken language, or other narrative elements. She collaborates regularly with Music Director Kaizad Gherda based in Mumbai, who has composed original music for all her plays.
She directed several plays and trained further under the mentorship of Sarah Argent and Kevin Richard Lewis from Theatre Iolo, Cardiff, Barbara Kölling from Helios Theater Hamm and the Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust, New Delhi. Her most recent work Saglejan Kheltat [Everyone Plays] commissioned by QUEST for Gostarang (2023) has been performed in over 150 village kindergartens called Anganwadi across the state of Maharashtra in India. 

Performers of “Hanv Gara Asa” (I am home)

Samiksha D Sawant is a multifaceted artist entrenched in the world of theatre and multimedia. With a 3-year-diploma in Theatre from Kala Academy’s School of Drama, Panaji, and training in Multimedia Animation and Special Effects from the Industrial Training Institute, Goa, she brings a unique blend of skills to her craft.
Primarily recognized as an actor and stage make-up artist, Samiksha's artistic journey extends beyond the stage. Her passion for storytelling and visual creativity led her to music designing and video editing.
Samiksha is extremely interested in dance, photography and videography - passions she nurtures alongside her role as a dance instructor for young children.

Ariedon Felldon Gomes After completing his graduation in Arts, and M.A. in English, his passion towards early learning led him back to a Bachelors in Education.
Since then, he has taught English, psychology and history to children in schools as well as to young adults at high school and college levels.
Gomes is an Indian Classical Flute player, having trained from Kala Academy Goa. He has also studied Western Classical Music, and Theatre from Goa University.
As an actor he works at the Mustard Seed Art Company as well as at the Goan Folk Cultural Festival. Gomes is fluent in Hindi, Konkani, and Marathi, and has knowledge of French and Portuguese, he loves to trek, read, paint, and most of all, he loves meeting new people and foster new connections.

Krishna Gawas is an artist and performer, who currently works with Spinning Stories, and is the founder of his own theater organization Jeet Creation.
He has a Diploma in Dramatics from Kala Academy’s School of Drama Panaji Goa. He also worked with the Kala Academy Repertory for 2 years.
With the ability to perform in four different languages, Krishna has enacted major roles in several plays and various films, including “GIRLZ” (Marathi, 2019) and “A night long Nirvana” (Hindi). He is also a celebrated voice over artist at the All India Radio. Krishna has won awards for his performances as a singer, for his solo act, and for sound design. For his own organization, he directed a commercial drama ‘Golmaal’, which showed for 37 shows over a single season, and won the third place for the All Goa Konkani Drama Competition (2017).

Artist of the Research Labs

Sidharth Varma is an actor, theatre maker, storyteller and voice-over artist based in Kochi, Kerala, India. He is the Co-Founder of Rasa Theatre Collective, a Kochi-based collective founded in 2021 with the vision to create contemporary theatre that is relevant, reflective and immersive. He is the recipient of ThinkArts Grant 2021 from which Rasa Theatre’s first production ‘Gajam’ was made. Since 2022, he has worked as children’s theatre facilitator and storyteller under Rasa Theatre Collective in Kochi. He works as After-School Theatre Trainer at GEMS Modern Academy, Kochi and as a Drama Trainer and Storyteller at Lake Mount Group of Schools, Kochi & Kottayam. 

Swapnika Reddy is a facilitator and educator who's come to believe a simple fact of life she read once: Birds fly, fish swim and children play.
Holistic education practices that are built on the foundation of experiential learning have helped her to see how children learn through play. The time she has spent with the young in their pre-primary years has given her the opportunity to observe how the arts play a significant role in the early years. This curiosity led her to study theatre for education and social transformation at Shiv Nadar University, India. She borrows many tools from theatre techniques to enter into the world of the young. She believes in the rich variety of opportunities that theatre practices offer in the learning processes in a classroom.