“Once upon a time, long, long ago, on the steeps of a distant mountain, 100 miles from anywhere, in a little ramshackle hat, there lived a Zen master,” begins Jemma Kahn, while she deftly slides bright visually illustrated storyboards from what looks like a wooden television box. The Zen master was known for his wit, […]

What does it mean to reconstruct any life event through theatre? What might be some of the dangers or pitfalls of applying theatre to a therapeutic process? Answering these questions and more, theatre practitioners and therapists Clark Baim and Pablo Gershanik shared their practice and methods in a recent Unrehearsed Futures (Season 2) conversation with […]

As we move through the pandemic, embracing a post-pandemic future, how can we reimagine theatre pedagogy for the 21st century? What does it mean to create a theatre school in response to the local community it is situated in? Can theatre play a more direct role in building a good society? Taking inspiration from Brazilian […]

The poetics of the oppressed is essentially the poetics of liberation: the spectator no longer delegates power to the characters either to think or to act in his place. The spectator frees himself; he thinks and acts for himself! Theatre is action! – Augusto Boal, theatre practitioner and founder of Theatre of the Oppressed Boal, […]

Ever since the pandemic began, drama schools around the world have been plagued with the question of what they are now preparing students for in their education. A response to this also leads to the question: How is the pandemic changing the way in which arts organizations function today? At the 22nd conversation of Unrehearsed […]

We’re back with an extended Season 2 for Unrehearsed Futures! At our 21st conversation, we had Lecoq pedagogue Norman Taylor and UK-based director, actor and teacher Dr. Ellie Nixon, deliberating on the differences between pedagogy, training, technique, system and curriculum.  Nixon believes that part of pedagogy is about really listening and watching and being watchful […]

It has been one and a half years since the pandemic changed our lives in unimaginable ways. It has changed the way we think about theatre and performance and the digital space. Unrehearsed Futures began with a view to understand how to disseminate theatre pedagogy through the online medium and has now grown into investigating […]

Over the past one and a half years, the COVID-19 pandemic exposed numerous ruptures and disruptions within existing frameworks in society. It has highlighted complex problems that need immediate attention, such as climate change, racism, caste and religion-based violence. Moreover, it cast a sharper spotlight on the unequal society we live in. We see popular […]

Over the past year, the COVID-19 pandemic has changed the way we look at the world around us. It has highlighted existing ruptures, be it climate change, caste-based violence or racism, economic instability etc. In all this, what role does embodied creative practice perform in moments of resistance and rupture? How does the work of […]

For a while now, we’ve been exploring how the pandemic has affected theatre pedagogy and learning. But what does it entail for writers? What kind of theatre writing is expected of writers in and beyond this pandemic moment? What social responsibility do they bear? Discussing this and more, playwrights Abhishek Majumdar and Kamili Feelings shared […]

One of the pre-requisites to becoming an actor is being able to embody neutrality. Most drama training programmes around the world circle back to the idea of being neutral – neutral bodies, neutral faces, neutral voices. There is an emphasis on being present in the body, releasing tension within in. A list of do’s and […]

A year later, our world is still in the midst of a global pandemic while being compelled to engage with social justice movements across the globe. Since lockdowns were announced around the world in March 2020, theatre practitioners were forced to stay inside and figure out how to create art from domestic spaces. What felt […]

In a post-Apartheid country like South Africa, where racialized inequality is deeply entrenched in society, the onset of the coronavirus and the ensuing pandemic adversely affected the gains of economic transformation aimed at rectifying that inequality, shared Lebo Mashile, especially within the creative sector. Sharing her thoughts on the pandemic and the possibilities it offers, […]

Among the many things the past year has made us reflect upon, owing to COVID-19 induced social isolation, one of them is questioning and answering for ourselves: Who is our community? Who are the people we want and need around us? If we take this a step further, what are the many levels of community […]

We’re a little more than a year into the pandemic. By now, Zoom has become a regular part of our lexicon, online training doesn’t seem so absurd anymore and online meetings are a comfortable substitute for in-person meetings. In the twelfth session of Unrehearsed Futures (Season 2), members of SITI Company, New York, Ellen Lauren (co-artistic director) […]

Theatre, performance and social justice are natural bedfellows. But often theatre and performance are seen as a mere source of entertainment. The theatres of social justice aim at engaging communities and actually changing societies.  For our twelfth session of Unrehearsed Futures (Season 2), we had Sara Matchett, artistic director and co-founder of The Mothertongue Project […]