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Doing theatre is not just about being on stage and performing. In fact, what one sees on stage is only a manifestation of theatre. Doing theatre is about the process. It is about peeling away layers of one’s self and the stories one wants to tell. It is the lives we lead, the human beings we become, the manner in which we meet our bodies and voices.

Consequently, acting and theatre training is not just about acquiring certain skills or learning some techniques. Being an actor and theatre-maker requires one to be vulnerable: to ourselves, to the characters one plays, and to others around us. Part of being an authentic performer is the ability to meet one’s vulnerabilities and be open to receiving. In the absence of training, it could perhaps take longer to get there.

Professional theatre training acts as a vehicle to release the body, breath and voice of an actor – , tools essential for any performance. It helps in grounding oneself physically and emotionally. It compels us to look inward and become a witness to who we are before deciding on how to move forward. Seasoned actors are often asked the question, ‘is theatre really necessary?’ Here’s what some of them had to say about how theatre training prepared them for life on and off-stage and screen:

Cultivating self-awareness

“Training made me realise the patterns I carried with me as an actor,” shares Adarsh Gourav, the BAFTA-nominated actor for his performance in The White Tiger. “I used to walk with a drooped spine, my shoulders always slouched and I had a slight head tilt. I used a certain bag of tricks as an actor. All my characters started having similar traits because Adarsh had those patterns,” he says.

Prior to learning acting and theatre-making, Gourav didn’t know how to use his body well. He had worked on camera earlier, which required one to be minimal and was usually discouraged from engaging the lower body. That changed during his training at the Drama School Mumbai (DSM).

“It centred me. It helped me channelise my restlessness and gave me a sense of direction and purpose,” he says.

He adds that what he carries most from his time at DSM is the idea of ‘listening’. “I never used to listen to my co-actors and always decided what I wanted to do. So, I never got affected by what other people did. I learned to be present and respond to things as opposed to deciding what you want to do.”

Bag of tools

As much as being a place for self-discovery, a drama school is also a space for experimentation, making mistakes and trying to find one’s voice as an artiste. To this end,students are introduced to new techniques and tools that’ll help them find what works best for them when it comes to performance. Training ranges from yoga, kalaripayattu, voice-work, singing to learning animal work, improvisation, Laban and Lecoq’s techniques, working with heightened text (Shakespeare), script analysis, among others

Srishti Shrivastava recalls a moment from her time at DSM when things clicked for her. One of the things taught during the course is animal work i.e. using animals to build a character. “At one point during school, we were working with Faezeh (Jalali) and learning Shakespeare as well. I was doing Shylock’s monologue from The Merchant of Venice. And I couldn’t crack that monologue until Faezeh suggested I do Shylock as a hen. It worked! Even now, when I’m working on characters, I go back to animal work to see which animal fits a particular character,” she shares.

With so much new information, it is often not possible to use everything one learns. Sometimes, it takes years to understand what was taught and seeing if it works for the performer. Shrivastava recalls an exercise the renowned actor Neeraj Kabi made them do during the training. “He used to make us sit in front of a wall, recall memories and perform it for ourselves. Yet somehow I could never use it in my work. It was only recently while working on a film that I tried it out,” she says, “He used to say, you take the memory, it changes your breath, changes your voice. It changes everything, changes your body and it happened to me during the shoot.”

Apart from learning and discovering new tools, theatre training also helps an actor understand how to use their body in the best way possible.

At 46 years, Mahitha Suresh came to study at DSM with a back problem. During that period she had to take a month off to undergo a spinal surgery. Despite this setback, she asserts that her training helped her understand how to use her body not just on stage, but in life as well.

“The whole program is highly physical. And all of the teachers know exactly how to use the bodies for best effect. However, when they teach how to use your body in a similar way, it isn’t just about acting on stage – it is about how to take care of your body and let your movements flow: minimal effort for maximum effect,” says Suresh.

The doubt before certainty

When working within an ensemble, the learning is both collective and individual. Each student is on a separate journey while going through it together. And a lot of times, there are no ‘Eureka!’ moments during the training.

When Shrivastava joined DSM, she admits she was shocked. “I didn’t know what the hell to do because everyone around me was so good. Somehow, they seemed to know what they were doing and I had no clue as to why we were doing kalari and voice riyaaz every morning,” she recalls.

It was only when she performed in the play Shikhandi one and a half years after graduating from DSM, that it all made sense to her. “That’s when I understood why we did kalari, voice and other exercises. I understood that it opens up my body and makes me really aware when I’m performing on stage and in front of the camera.”

Theatre training is never a smooth, steady ride.

It certainly wasn’t one for Aswin Sasi Varrier, who went through a rollercoaster, one that was filled with more downs than ups. “Drama school broke me and my confidence down,” he recollects, “There was technical jargon thrown at us which I didn’t connect to and it made it really tough for me to crack the whole training process. For most of the TMLs (Theatre Making Laboratory), I received negative feedback.”

But the finding-an-actual-oasis-in-a-desert moment, for Varrier, was when he did an improv with two other ensemble members where they were three old men discussing the construction of a bridge. After the improv, their teacher Puja Sarup observed that he had a knack for coming up with convincing voices for characters.

‘Transformational’

Varrier admits that even today, 80 percent of what he learned at drama school doesn’t make sense to him but he still considers it to be one of the best years of his life. “I believe I needed to go through it,” he says. “DSM brought discipline and rigour into my life and made me realise the amount of hard work that goes into making theatre. The fact that you just have to get up in the morning, show up, and be there and work hard, and hard, and hard, until the end of the day.”

For Shimli Basu, another DSM alum, training helped become more disciplined, as a person and an actor. “There are days when I don’t have anything to do per se but I feel a lot of things. It is on those days that I get up and I do the Chekhov exercises that we were taught. It is on those days that I know, if I do my breathing exercises, if I do push and pull (archetypal gestures in Chekhov technique), if I do my voice riyaaz, it will make me feel better.”

Beyond acting

Training isn’t just about acting. It opens up different avenues within theatre and aims to create thoughtful theatre-makers. Niketan Sharma, an alumnus and the founder ofNOW Productions, says there wasn’t enough time during the training period to do a deep dive into other aspects of theatre, apart from acting.

“But since we were given a good foundation in the other areas, I found the strength and courage to make a play from scratch and see it through to its performances on stage,” he believes. He also adds that the training he received at DSM gave him the confidence to create his own work even when he wasn’t getting work from others.

“For the first three years after drama school, I was not comfortable giving auditions for screen work – the whole idea of ‘fit/not fit’ (the casting conundrum where directors look for ‘perfect’ actors based on their idea of the film/web series) just didn’t sit right by me. So instead, I went ahead and made my play, Adrak.

Training, at DSM specifically, aims to build more resilient, capable human beings who are able to understand nuance, have diverse viewpoints and hold complexities in their head.

To this end, Suresh now describes herself as not ‘just an actor’ but a ‘thinking actor’. “Today, I’m an actor. I’m a writer. I’m a storyteller. I am a theatre maker. I know how to create performances for myself. I know how to take something small, like a line from a conversation and create a 10-minute performance piece out of it. I know how to do that because of the skills I learned at DSM. And as long as I can create theatre for myself, I will never be an out-of-work actor,” she concludes.

Disclaimer: All those interviewed above are alumnus of the Drama School Mumbai:

• Adarsh Gourav (Batch 2016-2017) – BAFTA nominated actor for The White Tiger. Other credits include Rukh, Hostel Daze, Leila. 

• Srishti Srivastava (Batch 2014-15) – Stage credits include Shikhandi, 07/07/07, Chuhal. Screen credits include Gully Boy, Girls Hostel, Gulabo Sitabo, Zindagi In Short.

• Mahitha Suresh (Batch 2016-17) – Actor/writer/spoken-word artiste – Screen credits include Sacred Games. Stage credits include storytelling for Kommune, Tape-A-Tale.

• Niketan Sharma (Batch 2014-15) – Actor/writer/ director. Founder of NOW Productions. Stage credits include Adrak, Photocopy, This Is All There Is When There Is All This, Mahish. Screen credits include Cubicles. 

• Shimli Basu (Batch 2018-19) – Actor/singer. Stage credits include Jo Dooba So Paar, Rakt Kalyan. Screen credits include Dhulo.

• Aswin Sasi Varrier (Batch 2017-18) – Actor/writer. Theatre credits include Maati, Thief. Cactus. Goat. Smut. Has also worked with festivals like International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK) and Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa.

Building the New Generation of Theatre-makers…
Requires an Operations and Admin team unlike any other. 

Drama School Mumbai was founded in 2013 to forge a new generation of theatre-makers; actor-creator-entrepreneurs professionally trained to perform and create work to a higher global standard of storytelling. Our alumni are all highly active, founding theatre groups, acting in award-winning plays, working in films as well as applying their craft in education and corporate-training.

The past year has given us a chance to renew our commitment to acting and theatre-making community by finding new, more resilient ways to train using digital mediums. The range and reach of our activities has expanded. And to carry this momentum through to the new year, we are looking for people to join the core operations team.

Please do look through the job descriptions below. And do feel free to pass this information to anyone looking for opportunities in accounts & financing.

For all positions, apply by writing to us at info@thedramaschoolmumbai.in with:

• Your current and complete C.V.
• Cover letter stating why you would like to do this internship
• The names and contact details of two referees.

If you have any questions, please to write in to companymanager@thedramaschoolmumbai.in

This November, Warona Seane, joins us from South Africa with a workshop about Fictionalizing the Self.

Sign up for the Global Faculty Programme: Devising Self with Warona Seane

6 Sessions | 17th – 27th November | Every alternate day | 17:30 to 19:30 India   

Workshop Fees: Rs 7000/- 

Workshop Takeaways:

This workshop is about fictionalising the self. Through the exploration of a single story, the participants will be engaged in the beginning processes of crafting solo performances taken from the ordinary and known, to the extraordinary, fictional and theatrical.

• Deepening awareness of the self
• Intensely exploring possibilities of the mundane transforming into performance
• Conceptualizing a solo performance dramaturgically

About the Facilitator:

Warona Seane is an actor, director, producer and was the first Artistic Manager at Soweto Theatre between 2013-2015.

 In June of 2016, she was on a residency at Baltimore Centerstage and Blue Mountain Centre to develop a new production with US collaborators. She was the 2017 convenor of the Theatre programme for the National Arts Festival and holds an MA Dramaturgy from University of Cape Town, in collaboration with the University of Amsterdam. Ms. Seane taught at Wits School of Arts and the Market Theatre Laboratory has presented at the “Black Women in the Performing Arts Conference: Volume 1” at the Steve Biko Centre and the 10th Women Playwrights International Conference. 

Currently, she is a lecturer at UCT’s Centre for Theatre, Dance and Performance Studies (CTDPS). 

Warona Seane’s stage acting credits include: For Colored Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/ When The Rainbow Is Enuf (Fleur Du Cap 2002); The Alchemist’s Heart; Nothing but the Truth and Nongogo (Naledi nomination 2006). Tsela an adaptation of “Waiting for Godot”, Ukutshona ko Mendi: Did We Dance and Tin Bucket Drum. 

Ms. Seane’s directing credits include Sacred Thorn; Yes Medem; Nelisiwe Xaba’s solos Fragments of an Orgy; Mute Echoes and Romeo and Juliet, For Colored/Girls Who Have Considered Suicide/When The Rainbow Is Enuf by Ntozakhe Shange; Eclipsed by Danai Gurira; We Are Here by Antonio Lyons, The Mountaintop by Katori Hall (Naledi Best Director nomination 2013) Hani for the Gauteng Opera’s Cula Mzansi and OoMaSisulu which premiered in the Main at NAF 2016, Sibongile Khumalo’s More Than Three Faces and Our Story Magic by Gcina Mhlophe for the Playhouse Theatre, Nineveh devised from an academic paper, The Visit (co-direction with Mark Fleishman) in 2018 and Susan-Lori Parks’ Venus in 2019. 

Ms. Seane’s credits as a Dramaturge include Iyazika, Here To There and Seriti. 

Voice Coach Barbara Houseman has worked with Kenneth Branagh, Jude Law and Daniel Radcliffe among others. Join her for September’s Global Faculty Programme.  

6 Sessions | Every Friday | 18 Sep – 23 Oct | 11:30 am – 1:30 pm IST

Workshop Fees: Rs 7000/- 

APPLY NOW: https://forms.gle/4Tz4xHQFd5sCTwdw7 

Workshop Takeaways:

• Deepen your understanding of Body-Breath, Vocal Health & Energy (Support), Range, Vocal quality (Resonance) and Clarity
• Develop an in-depth understanding of your voice 
• Build an understanding of socio-emotional barriers in accessing your full vocal potential
• Apply this knowledge to develop and maintain your voice 

About Barbara Houseman:

The Royal Central School of Speech and Drama | The Bristol Old Vic Theatre School

Author of Finding Your Voice and Tackling Text | Visiting professor at the University of Tennessee and the University of Connecticut

Barbara Houseman’s career as a voice and acting coach and theatre director spans over 40 years. She worked alongside Cicely Berry in the Voice Department at the Royal Shakespeare Company and with Tim Supple as Associate Director at The Young Vic. 

She works as a voice-over artist and coaches journalists who narrate their own documentaries. She also coaches non-actors and individuals wishing to improve their communication skills. Barbara is a fully qualified Healing-Shiatsu Practitioner, an NLP Master Practitioner and a certified Clean Language Coach.

Barbara has worked extensively as a voice and text coach in the West End including shows including The Ferryman, Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time and Equus (The Gielgud). She has been Season Associate Director -Voice & Text at Open Air Theatre, Regents Park, London since 2014. Recently she has returned to directing working on a number of one-woman shows.

August brings Ellen Lauren and J. Ed Araiza from SITI Company, New York to DSM! Apply now for this truly unique opportunity to work with Suzuki Method and Viewpoints training.

17th August to 28th August | 6 sessions | 7 pm – 9 pm IST

Workshop Fees: Rs 7000/-

Apply for the Workshop: https://forms.gle/WpPHMkKR2nfnyg4Y9

WORKSHOP TAKEAWAYS

Week 1: Suzuki Method
– Understanding fundamental theories and vocabulary of the Suzuki Method of Training Actors
– Focussing on restoring the wholeness of the human body and voice to the theatrical context
– Uncovering the actor’s innate expressive abilities
– Training in a rigorous physical discipline that seeks to heighten the actor’s emotional and physical power
– Cultivating a sharper awareness of one’s own strength, stamina and concentration.

Week 2: Viewpoints Training
– Understanding Viewpoints, training that breaks the field of awareness into individual subjects, dealing with the actor/director’s tools of Time and Space, all of which overlap
– Looking at one’s environment through the noticing of spatial and temporal phenomena to widen the artist’s field of awareness and attention
– Practising being and noticing one thing at a time

Introduction to the Suzuki Method of Actor Training

Ellen Lauren training with SCOT in winter of 2016

The workshop will introduce fundamental theories and vocabulary of the Suzuki Method of Training Actors. Developed by internationally acclaimed director, Tadashi Suzuki and the Suzuki Company of Toga, the Suzuki Training’s principal concern is with restoring the wholeness of the human body and voice to the theatrical context and uncovering the actor’s innate expressive abilities. It is a foundational training for any creative endeavour an artist wishes to undertake and does not dictate a style of acting. It is a rigorous physical discipline that seeks to heighten the actor’s emotional and physical power and commitment to each moment on the stage. Attention is on the centre of gravity and a vocabulary of footwork. Attention is on the specificity of movement, speed, balance and the ability to apply ’the brakes’.

The training is also designed as a metaphysical check into the invisible world of the artist. Focus, concentration, rich inner fiction and energy are measured and made visible. It is a training in presence, deepening one’s relationship to the sensation of performance. Rigorous or deeply meditative, this training seeks to restore sensation to the art of performance.

Introduction to Viewpoints:

J. Ed Araiza training actors in Beijing

The workshop will introduce fundamental theories and vocabulary of Viewpoints.

A technique of movement improvisation, the Viewpoints grew out of the postmodern dance world. The Viewpoints were first articulated by choreographer Mary Overlie; who broke down the two dominant issues performers deal with—Time and Space—into six categories;

SPACE-SHAPE-TIME-EMOTION-MOVEMENT-STORY (SSTEMS).

Mary Overlie’s Viewpoint work deeply influenced the SITI Company’s and its productions, primarily directed by Anne Bogart. For over 28 years the SITI Company has trained together and continued to explore Mary’s original concepts. As practised by SITI the Viewpoints allows a group of actors, performers and artists to form vibrant ensembles that function together spontaneously and intuitively, and to generate bold, theatrical work quickly. It develops flexibility, articulation, and strength in movement and makes staging more efficient as well as broadening the range of dynamic possibilities.

The Viewpoints were invented to deconstruct theatre, dance, and the concept of performance within the western cultural framework; as such it supports and encourages both individual impulses as well as the ensemble and does not dictate a style of acting or performance. The SITI company continues to teach an evolving form of Viewpoints, inspired and informed by Mary’s work and thought.

The Viewpoints and the Suzuki Method do not constitute a style but a foundation on which to build a responsive, holistic instrument prepared to work in a wide range of performance styles and media.

The Viewpoints allow a group of actors, performers and artists to form vibrant ensembles that function together spontaneously and intuitively, and to generate bold, theatrical work quickly. It develops flexibility, articulation, and strength in movement and makes staging more efficient as well as broadening the range of dynamic possibilities. It supports and encourages both individual impulses as well as the ensemble.

The training is also a philosophical approach to rehearsal and performance.

About the Instructors:

J. Ed Araiza

J.Ed Araiza has a long and varied history working on multicultural, cross-disciplinary projects as a writer, director and performer. Mr. Araiza is a principal actor and original member of the SITI Company, founded by Tadashi Suzuki and Anne Bogart. SITI Company is one of the most important experimental theatre ensembles in the world. He is a proponent of The Suzuki Method and Viewpoints training and for over 28 years has performed in productions in major national and international venues. These include the Kennedy Center in Washington, D.C.; the Olympic Arts Festival in Atlanta; The Getty Villa in Malibu; the Brooklyn Academy of Music; Actors Theatre of Louisville; Los Angeles Theater Center; Minneapolis’ Walker Art Center; Harvard University’s American Repertory Theater; Scotland’s Edinburgh Festival; Germany’s Biennale Bonn festival; Japan’s Toga Festival; Ireland’s Dublin Theatre Festival; and Festival Le Standard Ideal, MC 93 Bobigny, in Paris.

SITI credits include: The Bacchae, The Persians and Trojan Women, Under Construction, Who Do You Think You Are, Hotel Cassiopeia, Midsummer Night’s Dream, bobrauschenbergamerica, Culture of Desire, The Medium, Small Lives/Big Dreams, War of the Worlds, The Radio Play, and Nicolas and Alexandra, RADIO MACBETH and LOST IN THE STARS

As a playwright with seven original full-length plays produced, Araiza is a member of the Dramatist Guild of America, Austin Script Works and NoPE (No Passport Required). He has directed sections of 365 Days/365 Plays at the New York Public Theatre; Voluspa for the National Theatre of Iceland; Savitri, Dancing in the Forest of Death for the META Theatre Festival in Delhi (nominated for best production and best director) and MEDEAstories, his original adaptation of the Euripides has been performed at TEAK in Helsinki, Finland and also with an international cast for the SITI Studio Theatre in New York.  His bilingual adaptation Miss Julia, based on Strindberg’ Miss Julie has been presented in several international venues including LA MAMA ETC in New York and the LATC’s Encuentro Festival in Los Angeles. 

Professor Araiza has been a guest teacher at many universities including at the Juilliard School, Yale School of Drama, SUNY Purchase, Cincinnati Conservatory of Music, Columbia University, NYU, Stanford University, National Theater Institute, Harvard University, University of Chicago, Pomona College, Vassar College and the University of Denver. He was artist-in-residence/guest faculty for three semesters over three years at St. Edward’s University in Austin Texas; and artist-in-residence/Coastal Studies Chair at Bowdoin College in Maine. He was also guest lecturer in acting and performance at Ontario’s University of Windsor. Other international workshops include those at the Singapore International Theatre Festival; South Korea’s Seoul Factory Theatre; the Norwegian Theatre Academy; the Icelandic Academy of the Arts; Festival Iberoamericano in Bogota, Columbia; Teatro Vertigo in Spain, and most recently at the National Theatre Academy in Warsaw, Poland.

Since 2013 Professor Araiza has served as head of the MFA Acting program at the UCLA School of Theater, Film and Television, leading an interdisciplinary program based on collaboration and ensemble training. Ellen Lauren

Ellen Lauren:

Ellen Lauren is a founding member and co-artistic director of the SITI Company along with Anne Bogart, based in New York City. For thirty years, she has been an actor, choreographer, writer and director in the company. She also is the head of all of SITI’s training and educational programming including the New York studios and intensives, domestic and international residencies and SITI’s bi-annual Conservatory. 

She has been an associate artist with the SCOT Company (Suzuki Company of Toga) led by world-acclaimed director, Tadashi Suzuki for 40 years. She has taught and performed with SCOT, including running SCOT’s Summer Training program for 10 years. Touring over 35 countries over the decades in SCOT’s repertory, she has played Agave, Clytemnestra, Juliet, Jocasta and Goneril, and led workshops on behalf of SCOT. 

She is a founding member of the International Consortium on Suzuki Training for Actors and produced “Transformation through Training: 2017 International Symposium on SCOT and the Suzuki Training” at Skidmore College in New York where she produced SCOT’s last US tour of their renowned Trojan Women.

She has been an ongoing faculty member at the Juilliard School of Drama at Lincoln Center for over 20 years where she has also directed Iphigenia and Other Daughters and Trojan Women. Representative guest faculty positions include TEAC National Academy, Helsinki, Ecole Jacques Lecoq, Paris, the Royal Shakespeare Company, Carlos Universidad and Vertiço in Madrid, Soif Compagnie Paris, Maastricht School of the Arts, Windsor University, Banff Center for Arts and Creativity, Moscow Art Theatre and Beijing Academy. She was the first recipient of the Theatre Communications Group Fox Fellowship for Distinguished Achievement in the United States and is published in American Theatre Magazine (In Search of Stillness). Scott Cumming released a chapter in his book, Actor’s Actors, on her career and practice. 

She is currently working on her book, The Invisible Body.

Amy Russell was a pedagogic student of M. Jacques Lecoq in the nineties. Since then she has gone on to found not one, not two but three internationally recognized training programmes in physical theatre. She is also an award-winning playwright. And this month, the Global Faculty Programme offers you the chance to devise and write your own piece of performance art with her.

Rediscover boundless imagination within your living room from the facilitator who trained theatre-makers and actors like Yuki Ellias, Puja Sarup, Sheena Khalid, Gerish Khemani, Kallirroi Tziafeta and Tushar Pandey!

APPLY NOW: https://forms.gle/7a6yChnD1UPBBMKHA

WORKSHOP TAKEAWAYS:
Rediscover imaginative capacity within the constraints of lockdown
Write for performance by building a relationship with your environment
Deepen your performance capabilities with Lecoq and Viewpoints training
Create new performance material individually and with other performer-writers

ABOUT THE FACILITATOR: AMY RUSSELL
Amy Russell is a senior teacher in the pedagogy of Jacques Copeau -Suzanne Bing and Jacques Lecoq. She is also an award-winning playwright. She was a pedagogic student of M. Lecoq in 1997-98 and created the Naropa MFA in Actor Created Physical Theatre based on this pedagogy. She was Pedagogic Co-Founder of the London International School of Performing Arts (LISPA) in 2003, and lead teacher at this school in London and Berlin until 2017.

Amy is also a qualified and accredited Gestalt psychotherapist, a facilitator of group process for devising ensembles and an academic researcher. She is currently the Founder and Pedagogic Director of Embodied Poetics, a school for intensive training In Devised Physical Theatre.

Contextualizing Continued Training in Performance-making

“We turn to the arts when we are joyful; we turn to the arts when we grieve. And in times of uncertainty and despair, we turn to the arts again for sustaining our hopes. The arts enable us to forge solidarities, make sense of the present, and come together to imagine collective futures. This is especially true of now when the Coronavirus pandemic continues to disrupt and alter our lives.”

– India Foundation for the Arts

A lot of us are thinking about the future even as we do our best to take it one day at a time. Catastrophes of a global scale will do that to you. What does it mean to be a performing artist in these times? What does the theatre of the future look like? How can we imagine it together? 

These questions came later of course. What concerned DSM at the moment of this thought’s inception was, as co-founder and school head Jehan Manekshaw puts “how to survive the year financially while keeping our community of faculty, alumni, and followers (many of whom aspire to attend our courses) engaged during their time under lockdown.”

And as sometimes happens, in the attempt to solve a personal question, you arrive at a universal answer. And for DSM, this answer was the Global Faculty Programme. 

What is the Global Faculty Programme?

Screenshots from Vik Sivalingam’s ongoing workshop in the Global Faculty Programme

The Global Faculty Programme is a series of workshops for practising theatre-makers, actors, writers, directors and even filmmakers. The Faculty for these workshops comes from drama schools, companies and performance traditions across the world. Each month a Global facilitator will take a group of 15 participants on a deep-dive learning journey into a particular area of theatrical expertise. Designed for remote teaching, the course will comprise of six sessions via video-conferencing and 6-12 hours of coursework that participants will have to do individually or with each other. 

The journey is designed to build deeper awareness and provide new tools for further refining their performance and practice. Workshops in this programme will look not just at acting and performance-making, but also at design, lighting, technical aspects of theatre, and in today’s world, also explore the use of theatre tools and methods to bring stories in other mediums to life. 

This, we hope will to just open up the door for deepening skills and understanding, but give birth to cross-border collaborations that celebrate what brings us together instead of the <social> distance that keeps us apart. 

Why this Programme?

“…accessibility. Across nations, cultures, economic brackets and even individual disciplines. The fact that this pandemic has thrown us into a global melting pot (by virtue of commonality) is forcing us to all find a collective way out of it which is truly very.. unique. The fact we can have conversations with theatre makers in Chicago and Wales and London and they are facing almost exactly our challenges is in itself singular. Nothing else has forced us to hunker down together like this. And that’s what “global theatre” makes me think about.” 

As Amba – Suhasini K Jhala, LAMDA Alumnus and DSM Faculty member, identifies, we are truly at the threshold of true global connectivity. Space and time have become amorphous concepts, more so than they had consciously been in the past. In practical terms this means, learning together no longer needs to be restricted to a single physical space or even time-zone. It means that the intersection of digital pedagogy and live theatre training need to be examined and experimented with more rigour and focus because the stakes are higher and in some cases, urgent and irreversible. 

With Covid-19 situation, lockdowns and restrictions across the country, we are all waiting for live performances and public gatherings to restart. It’s important for us to recognize the anxiety born of this wait. But it is equally important to hold firm to the belief that the future of theatre still lies within our hands. That we can use these months of isolation and invest them in to global solidarity. That we can take values and tools from Peru, Singapore, London and New York and apply them to local practice, developing new work for this brave new world. 

Deshik Vansadia, faculty member and Stella Adler Studio alumnus says, “It comes down to truth.  If there is truth it works globally, if not then doesn’t even work for someone seated two feet away.” So as we look at theatre on the promenades and footpaths, in living rooms and empty stadiums, we need to learn from diverse traditions, diverse techniques that lead to a shared experience of this truth. 

Side-note: Do read these hopeful and articulate articles on the future of the arts:

1. exeunt MAGAZINE: What could socially distanced theatre look like? by Alice Saville
2. Medium: What should we expect from art in the next few years/decades? And what is art, anyway? by Carmen Salas

How is it being designed?

DSM’s strength has been it’s highly trained faculty which boasts of alumni from leading universities and actor training programmes. Moreover, over the years, DSM alumni and faculty have further made connections across the globe, through training and collaboration. 

The process of designing this programme is essentially leveraging this network. Which means the Global Faculty Programme could see facilitators from drama schools and companies in UK, New York, Germany, Singapore, Denmark, South Africa, Peru, Argentina, Columbia, Paraguay and Russia. 

What do we hope to achieve: Exposure to Global Theatre for Indian Theatremakers

Here is a small anecdote from DSM advisor and extended faculty member, playwright and director Ramu Ramanathan. 

“While in school I used to travel to Chandigarh or Amritsar for my vacations. My maternal grandfather was a professor and a linguist. He was proficient in six languages: Punjabi, English, Hindi, Haryanvi, Urdu, Sanskrit, etc. He knew his Ghalib and Tulsi and Shakespeare and Bulleh Shah by heart. At that time I realised that he not only could read the original version of the text but he could travel from one language to the other. Also, he could translate and interpret excerpts.

Also, I began to realise that while he was translating or lecturing, he was part of two traditions. And every theatrewallah should be so. Why? Because new worlds open up and new answers can be sought. In this day and age of homogenisation, I think this is important. More importantly, translations help you have access to so many languages: Mandarin, Italian, Japanese, German, French, Spanish, ancient Greek, ancient Sanskrit, Kikuyu, Khasi, Tulu, Norwegian, Russian. You begin to realise that there are innumerable outstanding works that have not been translated, and therefore innumerable writers and their voices to whom we don’t have access to. In a recent online session, the Argentine playwright Rafael Spregelburd spoke about Daniel Veronese, Lola Arias, Mariano Pensotti, Claudio Tolcachir, Santiago Loza, Javier Daulte, Alejandro Tantanian. It’s a matter of concern that theatrewallahs in India have not heard about our contemporaries nor their plays. For me this is the meaning of global.” 

What this little tale highlights is the somewhat distressing need for exposure to global practices in the Indian performing arts sector. If we are being honest, every sector – architecture, engineering, medicine, the humanities – actively seeks to learn about approaches and developments across the world. We hope that ultimately, this programme fulfils that same need for performing artists in India. That while our practices emerge from local experience, they are also tempered by global exposure.