Ever imagined what it would be like to take your toddler to a theatre performance. If you’ve wondered of the consequences of such an outing, then head to Ranga Shankara’s Object — A Theatre Festival for Toddlers ’18. The festival has been specially designed to give young ones their first experience of theatre. It features mostly non-verbal plays that are on subjects that are relatable to a child in the age-group of 1 to 5 years.
Talking about what triggered the idea to design a festival exclusively for toddlers, S Surendranath aka Suri, festival director, says, “In December last year, I was an observer at a workshop conducted by Barbara König who is an expert in object theatre (a performance style that uses utilitarian objects for theatrical effect). She was mentoring a few theatre practitioners and that’s when we thought of featuring them in our children’s fest.”
Four of the five plays at the festival are by Barbara’s mentees. The performances will be intimate experiential pieces for an audience of 40, most of whom will be children accompanied by their parents. “Children will sit on the stage around the performers,” explains Suri. The three plays scheduled for this weekend are PlastiCity, Wool Symphony and Chidiya Udd.
Objectified tales
PlastiCity by The Tadpole Repertory, New Delhi, follows two performers who discover plastic. It is devised and directed by Bikram Ghosh and Kriti Pant. “We chose to go non-verbal so the sounds of plastic accompany the voices of the performers. We didn’t want words because the performance creates a lot of abstract images and we wanted to leave the audience with multiple possibilities of comprehending these images,” says Kriti. From pet bottles, polythene bags and plastic sheets to every day trash — almost everything plastic is used in this play that is for children in the age group of 2 to 5 years.
Take flight
Shaili Sathyu of Mumbai’s Gillo Repertory Theatre has worked on Chidiya, Udd! The play, inspired by rhymes from different languages, is about a bird who befriends a child. “We discovered that Indian language rhymes are usually sung to children when they are being fed. This play explores the friendship between a child and a bird with food as the context,” explains Shaili. There is no fixed narrative, instead there are incidents portrayed through the play. This production that premiered at the Visioni Festival in Italy in February is for children who are 1 to 4 years old.
The third play is Wool Symphony by Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust, New Delhi. This play uses wool as a device and performers discover new aspects of the material while playing with it. Apart from the performances, the festival also features workshops for parents and teachers.
Rs 200. July 27-29. At Ranga Shankara, JP Nagar
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