Ranga Shankara Online Theatre Festival
Curation (2021)“Theatre director and artiste Amitesh Grover curates the first online theatre for Ranga Shankara” - Deccan Herald
“The festival is in a hybrid format, with a digital festival curated by Amitesh Grover” - Times of India
My Curatorial Note
The recent emergence of online performances —necessitated by the shutdowns, by the ban on physical assembly, and through the precarity of pandemic living —has foregrounded new, urgent forms of theatre and performance. In this world of empty stages and crowded homes, we are witnessing a shift in the setting of theatre. Our screens, our devices, email, messages, phone call, video conference platforms, social media, and other virtual networks have become the new sites on which the dramatic, the performative, the narrative have arrived, and in which they now find refuge.
Is this arrival a temporary station, a brief migration of sorts, a waiting room, before we return to the physical venue? Or, can we understand this contemporary moment to be an instance of an expanding field? Is the alternate, virtual platform a lesser cousin of traditional theatre? Or, is artistic innovation pushing at the gates that guard Theatre as we know it, in an attempt to throw it open to new possibilities, even as the doors of many theatre buildings still remain shut?
I curate for the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival to respond to these and several more inquires. I have invited a diversity of works that engage various modes in their showing. There are live online performances, showings of recorded acts, performative essays, interactive and participatory online works, and performing interfaces. There are shows made for collective viewing, and others that produce intimate one-on-one encounters. Each work proposes an intriguing relationship between our bodies, our stories, and our technologies.
It is, in this sense, an interdisciplinary festival as well, because it brings into play multiple forms and practices that are rarely in dialogue with each other. A program of talks punctuates the festival, where I invite the makers to share questions and concerns that emerge from their artistic processes.
I express my gratitude to Ms. Arundhati Nag for inviting me to curate this very special festival; to Medha for helping me put this program together; to the artists for responding to my invitation with warmth and camaraderie; to Ranga Shankara for giving us faith amidst this difficult time. I hope that you enjoy this festival as much as we have in putting it together for you.
The Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival happens every October to mark the birth-month of Ranga Shankara. This year, the theme of the festival is 'Staying Alive' keeping in mind the pandemic times we are living in. The festival is a hybrid-festival with both physical and online shows happening over five days. The online show has live time bound performances and non-live performances which can be watched at any time. Tickets available online.
Dates: October 27 - 31, 2021 | Language: Multiple | No. of Productions: 5 | Venue: Multiple Online Platforms
