When: Monday, October 14th 7 p.m.
Where: Tanzsaal at Podewil (Mitte)

Sharing: Research Laboratories 2024

This year’s research laboratories have been conceptualized and conducted by our cooperation partner ThinkArts Kolkata. Nishna Mehta from the ThinkArts team organsied a digital masterclass on Theater for Early Years facilitated by Sananda Mukhopadhyaya. This enabled them to reach 35 participants across India from the fields of arts and education and inspire the scene for the youngest audiences. Two participants from the masterclass received a scholarship to further develop their ideas in a research lab and will travel to Berlin in October to attend FRATZ festival and present their work in the framework of the Fratz Symposium. We are looking forward to the exchange and are happy to introduce Swapnika Reddy and Sidharth Varma.

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.

The event will be held in English spoken language. Simultaneous translation into German spoken language will be available.