This last month we continued the process of creating Boy with a
Suitcase, which is part of a larger collaboration between Rangashankara, Bangalore
and the Schnawwl Theatre, Mannheim.
The artistic director of Schnawwl Theatre, Mannheim - Andrea
Gronemeyer, dramaturge - Julia Dina Heße and musician - Coordt were all in Bangalore to
experience Indian music, sounds, textures.
For a peek at their experience, check out Julia's blog post:
The German national character is very committed to the idea of
aesthetic education and high culture for all. Therefore there is a concerted
effort to afford art to as wide a demographic as possible and art, as integral
to a holistic education is taken for granted. So an important aspect of Boy
with the Suitcase are the outreach actvities that are generated by the
dramaturge and pedagogue attached to the project.
To read more about this as well as Wanderlust: Fund for
International Theatre Partnerships:
Thus, the actors and pedagogues will meet with local NGO's working
on issues of migration, that being central to the story of Naz and Kryzia and
their migration to the "land of milk and honey" in search of the
ubiquitous "better life". Stories of migration from amongst the Boy with
a Suitcase team will be harvested as will stories from the audience.
As the projected audience is young, we are also creating a
cyber-relationship between classrooms in Bangalore and two comparable
classrooms in Mannheim. The students will be pen-pals of sorts! Clearly, for
this to happen with ease, the selected classrooms have to be cyber-savvy. Thus
the two schools selected in Bangalore are Mallya Aditi International School and
Inventure Academy.
We made presentations to the two schools and discussed the phases
of interaction and the objective of the interaction which is deepen cultural
understanding between young people of the two countries. There will be two
modes of interaction.
1) Email between partners (private)
2) Blog posts (public)
Interestingly, while the classrooms in Germany will be
watching Das Lied von Rama, a new German production of the Ramayana, the
students of Inventure have themselves recently performed the Ramayana so they
have enough to start off!
The first phase of the interaction is called "This is
Us!" Both classrooms will respond to questions about country, food,
traditions, pop culture and sport. This will be private and via emails. The
next phase "Everything is Theatre!" is public and on the blog. The
kids will by now, have seen Boy with a Suitcase and will review and discuss it
on line. In between there will also be two live interactions between the Boy
with a Suitcase actors and the participating classrooms. In Bangalore, we plan
to have these at Nrityagram (where we are rehearsing for a month) and
Rangashankara.
Check out their websites:
And so on, till the finale which involves all the students, a half
hour of Skype and hopefully many new friendships :)
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