Theatre Appreciation Course
National School of Drama, New Delhi
(2010 - ONGOING)
Every year, I curate Theatre Appreciation Course, India’s only course of this kind, at the NSD. This cross-disciplinary course critically examines the formation of contemporary theatre praxis and its multiple histories, forms, ideologies and locales. The course offered attempts to familiarize participants with practices, genealogies and methods that help analyze the contemporary with reference to the ‘local’, ‘global’ and ‘international’. The purpose is to explore new points of inquiry by positioning alongside historical /theoretical categories –reflections, experiences and conceptualizations from different performative traditions.
To this end, the course has been designed as a combination of lecture sessions conducted by renowned theatre actors, designers and directors and scholars from performing, visual and fine arts, literature and arts management followed by group discussions, video modules and viewing live performances. The lecture inputs traverse a range of topics such as ‘modernity’, ‘tradition’ and ‘popular’ in performance, the classical, its formations and challenges, how theatre practices interface with literature and media. Each session will attempt to forge connections between the topic at hand and how its multiple readings over time have complicated the processes of theatre making and spectatorship. To acquaint the participants with challenges of theatre pedagogy in the Indian context, institutional history and its evolution is mapped both in lectures and complemented by introduction to the NSD campus, its departments and a visit to the archives. General introduction to stage lighting, costume, back stage auditoria and documentation practices position the notion of materiality of theatre praxis at the forefront of any discourse on performance. In addition to this, to encourage writing on theatre, workshops on theatre criticism and playwriting are also held simultaneously for interested participants.
This is an intensive two week-long ourse for which reading material will be made available. Regular attendance in classes and writing workshops, if signed up for is compulsory. Those who sign up for playwriting workshop will be expected to work on developing play scripts, to be shared with the group at the end of the course. A participation certificate will be awarded upon successful completion.
