By : Pronoti Datta
Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com
Category : Film School Online
The annual play is usually the extent of theatre in most schools in the city. Often it's an event that parents impatiently endure and kids enjoy but years later recall with painful embarrassment . But schools in Mumbai are gradually taking theatre, and other arts such as cinema and visual arts, more seriously. Whereas once these activities were pursued after school hours, they are now being incorporated into daily timetables, and professionals are being hired to teach them.
Theatre Professionals, a company of theatre practitioners, has been teaching drama in schools since 2008. Co-founder Jehan Manekshaw says that their agenda involves using drama as a vehicle for studying subjects in the syllabus. "For example, if students are studying tribal cultures then we plan theatre exercises which explore that," he says. "The aim is confidence-building and socialisation skills. The push is on drama as process rather than end product."
The South Indian Education Society (SIES) commissioned Theatre Professionals two years ago. At a reunion in 2007, a group of exstudents from the 1969 batch decided to pay tribute to their school by providing Class Nine theatre training. Radha Ramaswamy, an ex-student based in Bangalore, who does drama workshops that follow Theatre of the Oppressed techniques, says that when she was a teacher at Mount Carmel, she saw how "theatre could make learning come alive" . The classes have been so popular that even students of Class Ten, who usually avoid all extra-curricular activities to focus on the final exam, demanded them. "The arts should be integrated in everything we do in school," she says. "They should not be seen as stand-alone subjects. They should inform an approach to education." A large proportion of SIES's students come from Dharavi. "These are children who have never been exposed to anything like this," says Ravi Ramakantan , Ramaswamy's batchmate and a doctor in Mumbai. "The headmistress tells me that on drama class day, the children never bunk."
Most schools that have the arts in their curricula follow the International Baccalaureate and IGCSE boards. Some CBSE schools too have incorporated the arts into their curricula after the National Council of Educational Research and Training (NCERT) introduced a syllabus that included theatre, music, dance and the visual arts in 2008.
Sananda Mukhopadhyaya is a member of Theatre Professionals and teaches independently at B D Somani International School, which offers the IB programme. Theatre is one of the items students can choose for their sixth subject. "It's a learning process for me as well," she says. "I can decide that I'm going to look at nautanki and then an Ibsen play and then butoh from Japan. The students go through process of learning history and becoming culturally sensitive. They learn what the relevance of art is."
Priya Srinivasan runs The Pomegranate Workshop, a company that teaches film appreciation and public speaking in schools and runs independent workshops on drama, film-making and storytelling. "Schools are definitely becoming more open to the arts," she says. "They feel that children need to be more informed. IB and IGCSE boards have a larger awareness with regard to these forms. But even ICSE schools are reaching out even though the syllabus doesn't require it." Pomegranate teaches film appreciation at Shishuvan, an ICSE school in Matunga, to students from Class Three to Class Eight, exposing them to the greats of world cinema from Jacques Tati to Abbas Kiarostami. "The kids respond in a very visceral way," Srinivasan says. "They are reacting to landscape and story. They're riveted by it." Schools have also shown interest, she says, in workshops on radio plays.
The enthusiasm of schools for the arts is providential for practitioners as it means making a living doing what they enjoy. Most theatrewallahs, for instance, can't afford to do theatre full-time . Many work in fields such as advertising and television and pursue drama on the side. "We come in at the cost of full-time teachers," Maneckshaw says. "The idea of not having to go outside the field of theatre to earn a living is a big appeal."
Source : http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/city/mumbai/Raising-the-curtain-on-drama-class/articleshow/12039408.cms
