Varied fare for Adishakti’s ‘Remembering Veenapani’ fete

Festival content to reflect 40 years of Adishakti’s engagement with, and research into diverse aspects of theatre, traditional knowledge forms and inter-disciplinary experimentation, says Adishakti’s Artistic Director

Adishakti’s 40th anniversary tribute to its founder Veenapani Chawla in April-May will feature heterogeneous cultural fare, from an Uruguay clown act and award-winning theatre from across India to folk rock, jazz and classical Carnatic concerts. The 2022 edition of the ‘Remembering Veenapani’ festival will be held at the auditorium of the Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Art Research near Auroville from April 5 to May 3. Entry to the shows will be free. Apart from 20 performances, the month-long festival will feature master class sessions led by leading practitioners in diverse spheres of performance such as Hassane Kassi Kouyate, director and storyteller from Burkina Faso, West Africa, dancer-choreographer Anita Ratnam, Koodiyattam exponent Usha Nangiar and theatre artiste Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry. “We wanted the varied festival content to reflect the 40 years of Adishakti’s engagement with, and research into diverse aspects of theatre, traditional knowledge forms and inter-disciplinary experimentation,” said Vinay Kumar, Artistic Director of Adishakti. In addition to carrying through Veenapani’s vision of creating an art space that is vibrant and accessible to all, Adishakti has been a meeting ground over the years for practitioners of diverse art forms at a time when the space for collaborative engagement is virtually non-existent, he said. The cultural interactions have gone beyond the bounds of theatre to make connections with Chhau, Koodiyattam, Dhrupad, Kalaripayattu, Noh, yoga and vedic chanting as well as voice training and other performance techniques from the West. Performers, poets, musicians, cultural psychologists, philosophers, film makers, and actors have collaborated on channelling ‘breath’ as expression. One of the features of the festival will be three master class sessions for children that will tap their creativity through art. “The residential training I underwent at Adishakti some time ago was an eye-opener to the various aspects of performance and has helped me a great deal as a film artiste,” said actor Aditi Balan, who has signed up as volunteer for the festival. Adishakti had also recently launched a Fellowship to mentor anyone with an idea for a play through the processes of production, from scripting to premiering. “The idea is to encourage new writing for theatre, break the mould of approaching stagecraft and cultivate a new aesthetic”, said Vinay. Future plans include theatre appreciation workshops for audiences, outreach initiatives to take theatre to larger audiences and a national Dalit festival later in the year. Adishakti will stage three of its plays that will set the tone of the festival — Nidrawatham on April 5, Brhannala on April 6 and Bhoomi on April 7. The festival high points include Rio-a clown show by Amares Teatro, Uruguay on April 22, Shurpanaki, an experimental yakshagana-Odissi piece on April 24, Sandippu, a performance by Kattaikuttu Sangam, Kancheepuram on April 25, Nothing Like Lear by Rajat Kapoor and Vinay Pathak, Mumbai on April 27, Elephant in the Room by Yuki Elias, Mumbai on April 29 and Desdemona Roopakam by Abhishek Majumdar, Bengaluru, on May 1. The music section includes folk rock by the Gowwli band (April 20), Just Sisters, a jazz-blues band in Auroville (April 23), a concert by Carnatic vocalist Sanjay Subrahmanyan (April 28), “The Threshold” by Bindhumalini and Pallavi, Bengaluru, and “Look for me in the Stars”, featuring Konarak Reddy and Roberto Narain, Bengaluru (May 2).