Applying theatre to life

The devised ensemble piece uses physical and object theatre

Three years into working closely with elementary schoolchildren of a municipal school in the Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti in New Delhi, theatre practitioner and educator Sanyukta Saha was asked a question that got her thinking. "Can we take up theatre as a profession?" the kids enquired of Saha, who was then working as an arts education programme coordinator of Aga Khan Foundation's (AKF) Urban Renewal Initiative. What so far had been part of their co-curricular activities had seeped into their lives, making them want to do something more with it.

The devised ensemble piece uses physical and object theatre

She quit AKF in March 2013 to work with the children - who were tweens and teenagers by then - on her own, and two years later, Aagaaz Theatre Trust was registered. "Many people in the arts hail from privileged backgrounds. The idea was to renegotiate what it means to do theatre," says Sakhi Upadhyaya, who is part of the facilitation and management team of the trust. The trust has 13 youngsters from the basti at its core who are growing into arts practitioners, theatre makers, and facilitators. Four of them will now present Bhagi Hui Ladkiyan, a devised ensemble piece, for the first time in Mumbai. Dhwani Vij has directed the physical theatre performance.

A Special Jury Awardee at META 2019, the performance blurs the distinction between characters and actors, with the young performers - Jasmine, Nagina, Nagma, Zainab - playing themselves. The stories that begin on a random day are first-hand retellings of day-to-day life in the locality in south-central Delhi, emphasising how gender and sexuality play out in their lives.

"The aim is to outline the fact that there are many stories connected with an individual and as young adults, the actors occupy complicated spaces as artistes, daughters and students," says Upadhyaya, adding, "It is difficult to see people outside of their oppression. Will these artistes always remain kids from a basti in the eyes of others?"

Not if one sees the kind of topics the girls have been exploring in this evolving piece. While Nagina, for instance, presented the idea of a girl's privacy in an earlier performance, this time, she grapples with the question of stripping religious identity. "It was in the aftermath of the Pulwama attacks that I felt for the first time that I was being viewed differently because I am a Muslim. I want to ask why someone's identity should be stripped down to his religion," says the 19-year-old on a phone call from college, ready to pack her bags and board the train to Mumbai. "From a life of home to school to tuition to home to now having my family's support to travel for theatre, life is good," she shares.

Members of the Aagaaz Theatre Trust team: (from left) Nagma, Sanyukta Saha, Jasmine, Dhwani Vij, Zainab, Sakhi Upadhyaya, Nagina, Devika, Jasmine Sachdev

For Upadhyaya, this is where applied theatre begins to achieve what they set out to do. "A rehearsal room is about equality, treating your colleagues with dignity. If life were a rehearsal room, how would you treat your co-actors?"

On: April 24, 8.30 pm, Five Senses Theatre Studio, Andheri West; April 25 and 26, 7.30 pm, The Mumbai Assembly, Bandra West; April 26, 5pm and 8 pm, OverAct, Andheri West (limited seating available at all venues).
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