It's theatre-o'clock

A set of eight new digital productions across languages uses clowning, theatre, stop motion, audio, puppetry and animation to bring captivating stories to young audiences

It's been three years. Yet the rain gods seem to show no signs of respite to a drought-affected village in the story, The Water Seed, written by the Munda group of writers. What ensues is a quest, where young men in the village, travel far and wide in search of water. But will they find it? If the premise of this story made your inner child curious to find out what happened next, don't miss a three-part stop motion piece based on it, presented by city-based Gillo Repertory Theatre.

The performance is one among the eight newly-launched digital productions by the Kolkata-based non-profit ThinkArts, set to premiere this weekend for children in the age bracket of five to 10 years. Sharing the genesis of the project, Ruchira Das, founder-director, ThinkArts, says, "In the depths of the lockdown as access to the live arts was cut off, we felt a jarring need for a platform to connect young audiences to artistes who specialised in creating art experiences for them. Since the pandemic robbed artistes of spaces to perform, we launched the ThinkArts Grant to support these artistes and help them create quality-driven and engaging digital content for young audiences."

Tinnir Dupur by Jhalapala Theatre Group

Funded by the Takshila Educational Society, the grant called for open entries from artistes across India. Assessed by jury members and theatrewallahs, Sanjna Kapoor and Soumik Nandy Majumdar, eight artistes from different corners of the country were selected to create unique pieces for young audiences. These grantees included Art Apart, Jhalapala Theatre Group, Tiny Tales, Sandbox Collective and Gillo Repertory Theatre, among

Spanning languages like English, Hindi, Marathi and Bengali, the performances use various mediums to engage children like theatre, clowning, stop motion, animation, tabletop puppetry, etc. "These plays include plots about a family of turtles who gather to celebrate their father's 100th birthday and a clown's attempts to perform yoga for a live Facebook audience. There's also an interesting play, an audio story about a young boy who loves playing the drum and yet another table-top play which uses upcycled waste material and ideas generated from a workshop with school students in Pulwama," adds Das.

On October 17, from 4 to 5.30 pm
Log on to thinkarts.co.in (prior registration is mandatory)
Free

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