The first weekend of ‘Remembering Veenapani Festival’ celebrated art through theatre and dance. Three plays with diverse themes were performed at the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art and Research near Edayanchavadi in Auroville region.
A performance parkour company from the U.K, a Kannada play exploring the feminine within the male dominated practice of Yakshagana and a Tamil play for children enlivened the audience for three days.
The month-long theatre festival began with a group of urban explorers, who discover the skeletal remains of a Steam Locomotive. The Prodigal Theatre’s Urban Playground team and Parkour Circle, Chennai, performed on Friday evening.
On Saturday, Adishakti hosted ‘Akshayambara’, an experimental Kannada play. Using both the modern theatrical tools and dance drama form of Yakshagana, ‘Akshayambara’ created a contemporary narrative that raises questions on female representation and male ownership. The play explores the representation of the feminine within the male-dominated practice of Yakshagana.
What happens when a woman enters the professional space of a form performed by men for the last 800 years? Drawing from research and personal experience, the performance imagines a reversal of roles in the popular Yakshagana plot of ‘Draupadi Vastrapaharana’. We see a constant shift of power between the actors as they shift from cauki (greenroom) to stage, blurring the boundaries of stage and reality, male and female, thereby exploring the conflicts around tradition, gender, power and morality. Directed by Sharanya Ramprakash, the play is supported by India Foundation of Arts.
‘Jujubee’, a play specially designed keeping children in mind was performed on Sunday. The fantastic play was filled with action, colourful masks, larger-than-life puppets, music and dance. Directed by Rajiv Krishnan, the story evolved gradually from improvisations by the cast. “Our challenge was in working with masks and puppets, both of which were new to us, and in keeping the text minimal and trying to tell the story through characters and images. Music was the final addition to the play. Our biggest challenge has been to tell a story simply and honestly without ‘dumbing it down’ or ‘talking down’ to children, while making sure that we keep them engaged throughout,” noted the director.
The second weekend of Remembering Veenapani Festival will have music and dance performance.
