A workshop by Puppetarians during a conference in New Delhi. The Mumbai-based group will perform at A.S.O.T in Hauz Khas Village

OUR ACHIEVEMENTS are directly proportional to our efforts. To initiate is one thing, to execute well is a whole lot of another thing. However, the most difficult part is to stay true to the path that the thinker envisaged, and the army set out to execute. That’s what the real alchemy is about.
The first national conference on “Theatre on Young Audience: Concept, Need and Possibilities” was one of the first of its kind in India, but it turned out to be yet another seminar with mismatch of speakers and sessions. The three-day seminar, at India International Centre last week, was organised by ASSITEJ India, an international network of theatre for children, and young and Regional Resource for Elementary Education at the Delhi University. It was aimed at bringing people from all over the country to facilitate an interaction between performing artistes, educationists, teachers and writers to address contemporary concerns of practices of theatre for young, and plan for the future. The three modes of deliberations were presentation session, workshops and talking circles. Names such as Barry John, Dadi Pudumjee, Rudrasen Gupta, K.G. Krishnamurthy and Anurupa Roy and participation from small-town theatre activists were an excellent icing on the cake. Sanjana Kapoor, director of Prithvi theatre and Dr Wolfgang Schneider, president of ASSITEJ International, inaugurated the session on August 4. All the sessions were woven around wonderful concepts toeing the theatrical requirements of young minds, but most of it failed to leave a long-lasting impact. At various sessions, especially during the paper presentations, there were many mismatches between presenters’ area of expertise and the topic. Many participants also found a huge gap between academicians and real-life performers. Presenters with various theatre research papers and books to their credits but no practical experience of stage or even workshops were the root cause of disappointment.
The higgledy-piggledy in one of the sessions on “writing for the young” made a visibly indignant Barry John point out three crucial flaws. He asked, “why are we so incapable of sticking to the topic? why can the panels not have relevant speakers, for instance none of the speakers in the discussion on writing for children were writers? and most importantly, why do we have to always use public seminars to push our very personal agenda?”
However, there were many positive firsts. Unlike most organisers, convenor Ashish Ghosh did not shy away from accepting shortfalls, but also strongly refused to give up hope and plan to making it better every passing year. “We were not over ambitious. We did not want to show excellence. Excellence being the ground, 60 per cent participants would be eliminated, and we would have the so-called elite enlightening the stage. Our agenda was to come closer. We wanted to give a chance to aspiring theatre practitioners to share the dais with established faces.”
“I agree that the standard of research papers could have been much better, but this was a learning process and it will help us take future steps with more thoughts. We have received a wonderful response for memberships. We have also been requested to organise something like this in other cities as well,” adds Ghosh.
Worshops, aimed at dissemination of practical work pertaining to practitioners’ reflections, innovative techniques and experimentations were well received. Talking Circles, meant for facilitating critical reflections on the seminar, was another USP of the event. The delegates, divided into smaller groups, challenged the ideas and added new perspective for the future planning of the conference. Theatre for Young Audience cannot be written off completely as it has a wonderful concept of bringing people closer, all it needs to do is to research who all needs to come closer. The army needs to follow exactly what the thinker wants it to. At the moment, the Theatre for Young Audience is a good beginning, but with a question mark.