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 […]

We’ve been living through a pandemic for more than a year now. Lockdowns, work-from-home, vaccinations – these are terms that have become commonplace and accepted as the new normal. When we began Unrehearsed Futures last year, we reached out to a global community of theatre pedagogues, students and practitioners to understand the terrifying moment we […]

The ninth session of Unrehearsed Futures (Season 2) witnessed a rich conversation about the women who contributed significantly to European legacies of “masters” Jacques Lecoq, Jacques Copeau etc. During the session, Cass Fleming, founder of The Chekhov Collective, and Paola Coletto, the pedagogical director of Padova Arts Academy discussed that though the nomenclature of physical […]

In the eighth session of Unrehearsed Futures (Season 2), renowned Indian director and founder of Theatre Roots and Wings, Sankar Venkateswaran called for a world that moved slower, closer and is more tolerant in a post-pandemic scenario. Quoting a Japanese economist, he added that this can be achieved through theatre and performance.  To explain this […]

When the Black Lives Matter protests took place across the world year, their impact could be felt in academic institutions around the world, who took up the task to decolonize their pedagogy further. But what does this decolonization of a pedagogy entail for theatre academicians? One of the things it includes is re-evaluating which texts […]

Being locked up in one’s homes for the past year, the pandemic has triggered an identity and perpetual existential crisis (apart from the devastating health and economic crises) for everybody, in some shape or form. Last year, theatre pedagogues and practitioners were faced with working with a new medium – what did that mean for […]

One of the things that the past year has compelled theatre-makers to think about the nature of participation in theatre in physical and virtual spaces. It has compelled makers to introspect the role of theatre in a society.  At the fifth Unrehearsed Futures session, Australian theatre-maker James Brennan and Dr Asher Warren, Head of Theatre […]

As the world continues to battle coronavirus and theatre practitioners engage with the idea of what theatre is and can be, creators Amitesh Grover and Benjamin Samuels have been pushing the boundaries of the form and creating interdisciplinary work for a long time. At a recent Unrehearsed Futures conversation, they shared their foray into using […]

One year on from when the COVID-19 pandemic took over our lives, uncertainty has gripped our hands again and is unlikely to let go any time soon. As India battles a devastating second wave of the disease, theatre-makers and pedagogues are back in their houses again discussing and reflecting on what theatre is and can […]