Bahuroopi, the annual theatre festival organised by Rangayana and the Department of Kannada and Culture in Mysuru, scheduled to begin on Friday has turned international for the first time.
The six-day theatre festival has attracted the participation of four foreign drama troupes, said Rangayana artiste and festival coordinator, H.K. Ramanath. “This year, troupes from Sri Lanka, London, Poland, and Bangladesh are staging plays in Bahuroopi,” he added.
While the Sri Lankan troupe will present ‘Sekkuwa’, a Sinhala and Tamil play, the Theatre Art unit from Bangladesh will present the Bengali play ‘Ameena Sundori’. The Orzu Arts Theatre company of London will stage ‘Mejnun-Madman in Love’, and the TBP troupe from Poland will present ‘Such is Life’, an English play.
Also, the festival has assumed a multilingual hue with the presentation of plays in a variety of languages, including Sinhala, Tamil, Bengali, Sanskrit, Odia, Malayalam, and Hindi.
Bahuroopi will be inaugurated by Parakrama Niriella, an accomplished theatre director from Sri Lanka, in the presence of Minister for Public Works H.C. Mahadevappa and Minister for Kannada and Culture Umashree at Vanaranga on Friday evening.
A new feature of this year’s theatre festival, scheduled to conclude on January 18, is the introduction of a theatre music programme. “There will be a theatre music programme every day before the start of the plays,” Mr. Ramanath added.
Bahuroopi will also feature a national symposium titled ‘Our democracy and theatre’, which will have sessions on Theatre and Cultural Market, Theatre and Technology and Crisis of Democracy that regulate modes of artistic expression. The subjects to be discussed under different sessions of the symposium include ‘Social Media and Theatre’ and ‘Hysteria of false nationalism: Narration of Unimagined History’.
Apart from an international theatre festival, national symposium and theatre music, Bahuroopi 2017 will also feature a film festival, poster exhibition, folk performance, handicrafts exhibition, and book exhibition.
Troupes from different parts of the country and abroad have begun arriving at Rangayana. On Thursday, a 21-member troupe from Sri Lanka led by Mr. Niriella was received at Rangayana by Deputy Director of the Department of Kannada and Culture, Nirmala Mathapathi.
