Minor accomplishments

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Time Out looks back at 2010 and realised that it was the year the kids held the reins

children's Books, dvds, art 4 all, Suar Chala Space Ko, aria panchal, jalebi ink

What happened in 2010? Hundreds of children’s books, tons of toys and dozens of DVDs lined the shelves of bookstores. Over the year, puppet plays, film screenings and clowns entertained kids as well. A study by the TV channel Nick India threw up disturbing results: only 25 per cent of children across six metros actually played outdoors on a daily basis. While there was lots of activities for kids, 2010 was really the year when children held art exhibitions, wrote books and even worked on a commercial play, with a little help from adults, of course.

Authors
When he was just 15, Christopher Paolini began writing Eragon, a story about a boy who takes up a quest along with his pet dragon. The book became a bestseller and was even turned into a Hollywood movie. Bollywood isn’t exactly enthused about signing movie deals with children, but this year two books written by children found mainstream publishers. Anshuman Mohan, 15, wrote Potato Chips (Harper), an earnest work about Aman Malhotra, who switches schools to join the prestigious St Xavier’s and tries desperately to fit in. Written with almost frank brutality, the book is packed with adolescent jokes and teen angst.  Another author, the 17-year-old Arun Vajpai, teamed up with Anu Kumar to write On Top of the World (Puffin), an account of his expedition to Mount Everest. Vajpai is the youngest Indian to have climbed the mountain.

Publishers
At Jalebi Ink, a media company for young adults, children got a chance to air their views about their neighbourhood, the environment and the world around them. In October, young reporters from Jalebi Ink’s Green Squad published Junknama, a newspaper about the environment. They wrote about garbage disposal, water woes and the diminishing green cover. They also visited Dharavi to witness waste recycling, interviewed environmentalists and covered programmes such as the Carter Road Car-Free Day. In a story titled “Trash Troopers”, the reporters  pointed out that Mumbai produces more than 6,500 tonnes of garbage every day, “roughly equivalent to17 fully loaded Airbus A380s”. On October 10, the children distributed copies of the newspapers to evening walkers at Carter Road in Bandra and marched holding solar lanterns.

Artists
At Dreammakers 2010, students of Art 4 All managed to do what most adults haven’t. They displayed their paintings at Chemould Prescott Road Art Gallery and even sold some. “Mumbai through the eyes of children” featured iconic landmarks such as Flora Fountain surrounded by Gothic buildings and hoardings, the Bandra-Worli Sea Link and Rajabai Tower, all painted by children. Images of traffic jams, petrol pumps and fishing colonies were rendered in bright colours. The kids were understandably excited about their paintings being displayed, but a few were concerned that if someone other than their parents bought their work, they wouldn’t be able to take it home.

Playwrights
When director Shaili Sathyu wanted to produce a children’s play this summer, she delved into a pool of ideas generated by kids. The result wasSuar Chala Space Ko, a quirky play about a smelly pig who travels to space. “The play is based on a puppet play originally written by children during a workshop that I conducted in 2001,” said Sathyu. “The play developed in an organic way, with children thinking of different plots and putting them together. The title of the play was conceived by the kids.” In May, Thespo, a youth theatre initiative from Q Theatre Productions, conducted “Dramabaazi”, a children’s workshop. The result was The Mighty Mirembayanna and the Prisoners of Peace, a play about peace and war. Toral Shah of Q Theatre said that they thought the workshop was a great way for kids to experience “what it’s like to go through a rehearsal process, learn lines, get into costume, wait in the wings for their entry and have an audience”. With most plays for children being written and performed by adults, this summertime was a welcome change.

By Bijal Vachharajani on December 23 2010

Finding Neverland

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The boy who wouldn’t grow up is coming to the Mumbai stage

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/finding-neverland

peter pan, kids play, Theatre, Faezeh Jalai, neverland, prithvi theatre,

This fortnight, Mumbai kids will have the opportunity to visit the fantastic world of Neverland and meet such eternally popular characters as the mischievous Peter Pan, his arch enemy Captain Hook and the jealous Tinker Bell. The magical story of Peter Pan, the boy who refuses to grow up, is being staged by Akvarious Productions as part of the Summertime with Prithvi festival.

In the play, Peter, Wendy and the Darling children fly off to Neverland and join forces with the Lost Boys to take on the nasty Captain Hook. “They will be fighting pirates, flying and meeting crocodiles,” said director Hidaayat Sami.

Since Peter Pan is all about flying fairies and magical lands, it’s a challenging story to adapt for the stage. Sami has wanted to mount a production of Peter Pan for a long time, but JM Barrie’s classic story isn’t easy to adapt for the stage. “Like how will you show the flying and how will you match foreign production values,” Sami said. Despite the budget constraints and the lack of technical assistance that discourage Indian directors from attempting fairy tales, the director and his crew thought long and hard to come up with some tricks.

The children in the audience can expect to see the actors do nifty rope tricks and mallakhamb, or Maharashtrian-style gymnastics performed on a pole and with a rope. Faezeh Jalali, who acted as a fairy in Tim Supple’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, plays Peter Pan. The petite Jalali is an obvious choice for the role – she learns mallakhamb at Shivaji Park in Dadar and can shimmy up and down ropes in a trice. Jalali has acted in several plays and movies, including Rohan Engineer’s Ursula, but this is the first time she will be playing a boy. “Traditionally, in a lot of items, Peter Pan has been played by a woman,” said Jalali. “In musicals, no matter how old the woman is, she can sound like a boy. And I don’t think of it as playing a boy or a girl. It’s about playing Peter Pan, who wants to be in this world of play and make believe.”

In addition to rope tricks, Sami’s cast of 22 has learnt fencing from theatre director Bijon Mondal and dance from actor Shivani Tanksale. Actors Anand Tiwari and Trishla Patel have been coaching the cast on how to behave like children. “There’s a very thin line when an adult is playing a child,” said Sami. “It could look crazy. Then even the child in the audience wonders why is the actor behaving so strange. We’d rather have them play young adults than do funny antics.”

Many children’s plays have a standard formula : throw in some Bollywood music for the kiddies to dance to, add some slapstick humour and get the cast to jump, fall over or perform outlandishly. However, Akvarious Productions are usually a departure from these clichés. Most of their children’s plays are adapted from storybooks. The group has previously staged The Shehenshah of Azeemo, an adaptation of L Frank Baum’s The Wonderful Wizard of Oz; The Mystery of the Pantomime Cat, which was based on one of Enid Blyton’s Five-Find Outers and Dog mystery: and The Adventures of Tintin, their first-comic book adaptation.

Peter Pan was chosen because it is Sami’s favourite story and he is looking forward to presenting it to both children and adults. “Peter Pan is a subject which even grown-ups would want to see,” said Sami. “I have a lot of grown-up people telling me that they want to watch it.” Jalali is excited about the children’s play too. “I love children as an audience, I think they are amazing,” said Jalali. “While adults are more reserved, the kids get so much more involved with the play. Which is why it’s actually amazing to have children in the audience.”

By Bijal Vachharajani on April 29 2011 7.08am
Photos by Parikshit Rao

Child’s play

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Is children’s theatre finally growing up?

(Or in which I finally interview Naseeruddin Shah)

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/child%E2%80%99s-play

Naseeruddin Shah, arms and the man, kids play, Theatre, motley, bernard shaw

Actor-director Naseeruddin Shah remembers seeing Arms & the Man, George Bernard Shaw’s satire on war and heroism, when he was six years old. “I was lucky enough to be exposed to a lot of theatre early enough in school,” said Shah. “I was studying at St Joseph in Nainital when I think I saw Shakespeareana [Geoffrey and Laura Kendal’s company] performing the play. Of course, I didn’t understand all of it, but I loved the funny bits and it stayed with me. It’s possible that it created my love of English language.” This fortnight, Shah will stage Arms & the Man at Summertime with Prithvi, the Juhu theatre’s annual kids festival.

For years, children’s play producers have been loosely defining their audience as ages three and above. But this year things are set to change. During this season of plays at Summertime, young adults can move beyond banal offerings of song, dance and slapstick humour typically meant for younger kids. They can catch Bijon Mondal’s Wonderland, which fuses the story of Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland with Cervantes’ Don Quixote; Chandan Roy-Sanyal’s Two Blind Mice, an adaptation of Samuel Beckett’sWaiting for Godot; and Manav Kaul’s Mamtaz Bhai Patangwale, a story about a child obsessed with flying kites.

Shah looks at Arms & the Man as an attempt to move kids’ theatre away from mindless comedy. He was appalled by the quality of some of the plays staged at Summertime last year, he said. “I don’t believe in underestimating children’s intelligence,” said Shah. “As it is, children are treated as morons all the time and I think they should be given something which challenges their intellect a little bit.” But, Shah added, Arms & the Man is also easily comprehensible. “The plot is not complicated,” he said. “It has beautiful language, charming characters and funny situations.” It’s a shift that Sanjna Kapoor, the director of Prithvi Theatre, is excited about. “Two years ago, we realised that we were finding it tough to fill Summertime workshops for children between the ages of 14 and 16,” she said. “Most of our focus had been on the age groups of six to 13 year-olds. We can’t expect teenagers to enjoy the same plays as younger kids.” Kapoor said that it was Shah’s experience at Summertime last year that made her think about an older audience. Accordingly, Prithvi has also tweaked its membership plan. Children between the ages of 6 and 11 are entitled to watch children’s plays free of cost for a year. Additionally, young adults, aged 12-16, will get a card that allows them to see any play (children and adults) through the year.

Kapoor has also asked producers to focus on age-specific plays for children this year. Mondol’s Wonderland, for instance, is for kids above the age of eight. “I am trying to create drama that educates and at the same time introduces kids to the grandeur of theatre, Mondol said. Similarly, Roy-Sanyal tweaked Godot to make it more appealing to children. Protagonists Vladmir and Estragon are ten-year-old boys, rather than old men, who play games while waiting for Godot. “A lot of people questioned me about doingGodot for children,” said Roy-Sanyal. “But I think it would be interesting to see how the kids react to it.”

Earlier this month, Aasakta, a Pune-based group staged Junglenama, a sensitive portrayal of the man-animal conflict prevalent in Indian forests today. At the beginning of the play, director Sarang Sathaye announced that the story was originally written for adults and that children might find it difficult to follow at times. But that didn’t deter Aasakta from adapting the story to stage. “Children today are more mature at a younger age and get the subtle nuances of a play,” said Ashish Mehta, the group manager of Aasakta. “You don’t have to tell everything explicitly in a play.” Shah agrees that the distinction between children’s plays and adult ones is overblown. “Kids seldom go to see children’s plays alone,” said Shah. “They are usually accompanied by adults. I remember seeing Peter Pan and Nagin at the age of three or four and the adults enjoyed it as much.”

By Bijal Vachharajani on May 12 2011 6.30pm
Photos by Tejal Pandey

Just asking

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Curiosity won’t kill the cat in Kyun Kyun Ladki

http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/just-asking

The why-why girl, Books, childrens play, kyun kyun ladki, bharatanatyam

“Why, what, when, where, how”. These words can most often be heard from two sets of people – journalists and children. While reporters use these words as a professional tool, for children asking questions is a way of exploring the world around them. Moyna, the protagonist of Mahasweta Devi’s book The Why-Why Girl, is an inquisitive tribal girl brimming with questions like “Why do I have to walk miles to the river for water?” and “Why shouldn’t I study too?” This summer, Moyna’s story will be adapted for the stage in a children’s play called Kyun Kyun Ladki.

Director Shaili Sathyu said that the play is an attempt to capture the basic human curiosity about the world. “A child’s capacity to question should be celebrated,” she said. “In fact, it’s a trait that’s becoming more and more undesired by parents who don’t want to engage in answering questions.” Sathyu pointed out that a lot of parents often stifle a child’s questions. “But if you don’t question, how do you evolve”, asked Sathyu, adding that she hoped parents watching the play would realise that they can enjoy this aspect of their child’s growth.

While the book’s story is firmly set in tribal land – the author had based the story on her work with tribal groups in Jharkhand and West Bengal – Sathyu has kept her play’s setting deliberately vague. “We are not harping about poverty,” said Sathyu. “Through Moyna, I am telling the story of all children.”

For the last few weeks, the actors have been training under Bharatnatyam dancer Hamsa Moily and learning how to blend mime with rhythm. Their actions will be set to music, which will be belted out by a live band on stage. “There will be flute, violin, percussion and vocal,” said Mithila Lad, the music composer, adding that they chose these instruments so that they could introduce kids to music beyond electronic sounds.

Sathyu’s group, Gillo Gilheri, has previously produced Suar Chala Space Ko, a nonsensical, delightful play that fused together science fiction, mime and shadow play. This time around, the audience can again expect mime, poetry and music but what they won’t get is a linear narrative. Apart from Moyna, the rest of the actors transform from playing children to adults to animals and even objects like a door frame. Sathyu, who is an education consultant at Akshara High School in Kandivali, said her work has made her realise that a child’s thought process is very nonlinear. “It’s beautiful how children think,” she said. “I wanted to challenge myself to capture that process.” While Sathyu is uncertain about the audience’s response to a nonlinear narrative, the one thing she is sure about is that the play will make children ask “What is the story?” Sathyu said, “To that, we’d be happy to ask back, ‘What did you see?’”

By Bijal Vachharajani on May 12 2011 6.30pm
Photo: Parikshit Rao

Hot property

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http://www.timeoutmumbai.net/kids/features/hot-property

South Mumbai kids have a new summer hangout

south mumbai, summer activity, ncpa, workshops, dance, Theatre

Mumbai kids have yet another annual event to add to their busy summer activity calendar. The National Centre for the Performing Arts is kick-starting the second edition of Summer Fiesta, their month-long festival which brings together 23 workshops, five plays and four films for children.

Kids can participate in a range of workshops in theatre, dance and music that explores the literary works of William Shakespeare and Shel Silverstein, introduces children to the basics of dance forms such as jazz dance and kathak and also acquaints them with genres such as comedy, horror and tragedy in theatre. The NCPA is also partnering with the WorldKids Foundation to screen films such as The Wanderer, Riddle in a Bottle, Jane and the Dragon: Dragon’s Tail and Winky’s Horse.

Deepa Gahlot, who heads the theatre and film departments at the NCPA, said that the fiesta is an effort to get children interested in arts and culture. “Over a period of time, parents are realising that children need to do things beyond academics,” she said. “Summer Fiesta is a good way for children to be exposed to theatre, dance and music. It’s fun but not competitive. It’s a space where parents can come and leave their children for a few hours and the kids can meet others of their age.”

Amrita Lahiri, the head of dance programming at the NCPA, is curating the dance workshops, which focus on four different dance forms – bharatanatyam, mohiniattam, jazz and kathak. “You clearly can’t learn dance in five days,” said Lahiri. “But the workshops will kindle an interest in the children at least.” The workshops will culminate in a performance by the participants.

While the dance and film activities are being curated by the NCPA, Theatre Professionals and Poor Box Productions are offering theatre workshops. “We have got workshops through the day, so kids can come right from morning, spend the whole day here and also see plays or attend film screenings,” said Jehan Manekshaw, the co-founder of Theatre Professionals, a group that teaches drama in schools. “What we are offering is a team of instructors who can go in and take a particular subject and break it down so the kids can understand it. The workshops are more about having fun and sneaking in the learning.”

For instance, actor Shaun Williams is conducting “Acting Shmacting with Shaun Sir”, a workshop where kids will go through the elements of performance and scene work. Williams will get the kids to enact a scene using different styles. “The kids will take a scene and do it melodramatically or as a horror story or a farce,” said Manekshaw. He added that while the children would have fun in the rehearsal room, at the end of the module, they would have understood what it takes to be an actor and be able to choose from a range of performance styles.

By Bijal Vachharajani on April 29 2011