415 performers performed in the 21-day theatre festival
“ Goonj”
(Apne Hone Ki Aawaz)
8th Dec- 28th Dec –2007
Organized by
Experimental Theatre Foundation, Mumbai
In association with
Blair International School
Port Blair
Andaman & Nicobar Islands
On Completion of 15 years of “Theatre of Relevance” Experimental Theatre Foundation, Mumbai organised a 21- day theatre festival “ Goonj – Apne Hone Ki Aawaz” from 8th –28thDecember 2007 in Port Blair, Andaman & Nicobar Islands in association with Blair International School.
415 performers performed in Goonj (316 Students and 20 Parents, 33 Teachers and 25 Non Teaching Staff and 11 theatre practitioners and literary people). The performers went on a journey of learning, unlearning, shedding inhibitions, de-conditioning, self-tempering and self-exploration. They resonated their beings "Goonj" through self-discovery and self-assertion via workshops, performances, and subsequent, self and group analysis and open dialogue on “Theatre of Relevance”.
At the end of the first Phase the Students staged three performances written by Manjul Bhardwaj:
·B – 7: (A fable for children below 12 years of age, on the birds of the natural world discovering how man pollutes their, and his own habitat)
·Vishwa The World: (A Role Model for today's teenagers and adolescents, where they see and experience snippets from the lives heroes from across the world ranging from Abraham Lincoln & Kabir, Mahatma Gandhi & Einstein and the Kenyan Environmentalist Wangari Maathai to Aung San Su Kyi)
·Goonj: (A 20 minute compressed representation of what the children went through during the 12 days of the workshop)
In the second phase (from the 22nd to the 26th) the workshop was opened to all children and from in & around Port Blair and also to those from across various islands of the A & N archipelago of Islands.
In the third phase an open dialogue was organised by Andaman Rangmanch- a local theatre group on “ Theatre of Relevance” for theatre and literary people.
The overall Objective of this festival, which was to provide the participants a platform to Experience, Explore, Exhibit the process and concept of “ Theatre of Relevance”. The performers discovered themselves through this journey. At the end of the festival the children had not only staged the three plays mentioned above, but also had put up a total of 26 different impromptu performances of various kinds. All these performances were created completely, conceived, written and directed, by the children. The reactions from most children at the end of each day would be heart warming. Vikita a girl studying in grade 8, on being asked how she felt told Mr. Manjul Bhardwaj “Sir this has been my Best Christmas Ever, I suddenly feel that I can not only talk, move and act, but I can also think on my own”.
The resource person, partner and contributor Mr. Manjul Bhardwaj, a nationally and internationally renowned theatre personality and founder of The Experimental Theatre Foundation, has flown down all the way from Mumbai to facilitate this festival. He is the conceiver and father of the Theatre Philosophy called "Theatre of Relevance", and is the creator of all the three performances (mentioned above), which were staged by the children.
The Teachers of the School underwent a process, which Mr. Bhardwaj calls the Laboratory of life. Under this Process Mr. Bhardwaj gets each participant to frankly introspect and shed the unnecessary emotional baggage that most Adults (especially teachers) tend to pick up. Mr. Bhardwaj`s intervention not only helped them de-stress, gain confidence, and become even more child-friendly, but also do the unthinkable. At one point in his work with the teachers he challenged them to get down from the First Floor of the School’s Conference Hall without using the stairs, the teachers rose up to this .The teachers climbed down from high the balcony outside the Conference Hall to the Ground Floor. The teachers also performed a Short Play (Our Iceberg is Melting) and all but one of them was having her/his first ever stage appearance.
The islands echoed with the performers sounds and performers of celebrating their being (Apne Hone Ki Aawaz). This festival has germinated theatre in many hearts and minds of the residents of Andaman & Nicobar Islands.
Through the entire duration of the Festival, it was like as if the School, the children and adults were under an enchantment charm.
