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BAL NATYA UTSAV : : (Children Theatre Festival)
(A Process Report) : : by Darshana Dube

---IMPACT OF BNU ON : CHILDREN---

In order to study the impact of theatre through the Bal Natya Utsav on children a meaningful interaction with about 50 children belonging to 7 different voluntary organizations was carried out. After having the detailed talks with many children belonging to the age group of 6 to 16 and observing them vis-à-vis their behavior and mannerism at a very close angle, one got a clear insight into the changing attitudes and lives of these children brought about by the influence of theatre.

Most of these children belong to a poor socio-economic section of the society who have run away from home or unfavorable circumstances, as they could not bear to be victimized by the society, which denied them a dignified living. Theses children have sought shelter in various organizations. Those who live with the families have ignorant families who are either not aware of their duties as parents or have succumbed to the pressures of survival, robbing their children of the basic rights and opportunities, due to them. Considering their background it was more astonishing to discover that today all the children seem to challenge their doomed fate with the new found knowledge and confidence achieved by the exposure through theatre.

Bal Natya Utsav has brought about a sea change in the understanding, capabilities and attitudes of the under privileged children by providing them a platform for expression through its Abhivyakti Manch which allows the children to express uninhibitedly on a daily basis. Every day at school the children get to gather to dance, sing, mime and even script. The sessions are so popular that no child wants to miss these sessions. Nitesh says, “I would do anything to attend the drama classes, even quarrel with my mother if the need be.” The sessions also teach the children to emote freely. This method applied and propagated by ETF has been widely appreciated as besides entertaining the children and giving them a break from their daily struggle of existence, it educates them by constantly talking and acting about the issues affecting their lives.

Theatre has promoted a tremendous personal growth in the little performers by helping them to build their confidence, increase their awareness levels regarding their rights as well as the environment around them. In certain cases as sited below, there has also been an improvement in their academic performance through theatre that has led to memory growth vis-à-vis dialogue memorizing. In certain cases an awareness of importance of correct sentence construction needed for the dialogues has led some children to pay more attention to Languages, leading to academic improvement.

The following case studies would throw more light on the transformation process. It has been a fruitful task trying to get new insights from the children as most of the 50 children, on interaction kept on revealing the repeated facts. The ones that gave a new insight are cited in :
CHILDREN : : CASE STUDY

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