It was in May final 12 months that Loyola College of Social Sciences at Sreekariyam in Thiruvananthapuram hosted a group theatre workshop for the visually challenged. The 10-day workshop, maybe a first-of-its-kind in the nation, noticed 21 individuals being educated and staging two productions at the finish of the workshop.
The documentary, Natakantham, directed by G Rarish, chronicles this path-breaking workshop. The excellent news is the documentary will likely be screened in the worldwide documentary class at Cinema Palooza film festival to be held at Cali, Columbia, from July 25 to 27. Natakantham is the solely documentary from India selected for the festival together with eight different worldwide productions. The solely different entry from India is in the quick film class.
Participants at 3B Frames, a group theatre workshop for visually challenged organised in Thiruvananthapuram
| Photo Credit:
Sreejith R Kumar
The workshop, known as 3B Frames, was organised by APT (A Place for Theatre), Ether India, an NGO, Kerala Federation of the Blind -Youth Forum and Loyola Extension Services. “Being a novel venture, neither the organisers nor the participants knew how it would turn out. And we shot it in such a way that it did not disturb the conduct of the workshop. While some visuals were shot using proper camera, some were taken on mobile phones. We were in for a surprise when we saw the participants overcoming their limitations and shining on the stage,” says Rarish, who had received particular jury point out (director) for his first function film, Vettappattikalum Ottakkaarum at the Kerala Film Awards 2023.
Sam George, creative director of APT and the camp director, says, “There were several challenges. The tools that we use in theatre were not enough to train them. So we did research and came up with a module that adapted existing methods to suit their limitations.”
Among the trainers had been theatre practitioners and artistes comparable to Premjith Sureshbabu, Janil Mithra, Shanu S, Anoop Mohandas, Reshma M, Sabitha Kadannappalli, Gopika and Alamelu KS.
G Rarish
| Photo Credit:
SPECIAL ARRANGEMENT
The documentary captures the gradual however impactful adjustments in the individuals. “Their body had become stiff without enough movement. So the initial task was to make them aware of what their bodies could do and the importance of gestures as a means of communication. What they learnt became a habit for them in five days. That gave us and them the confidence to put up two productions,” the trainers say in the documentary.
The documentary has vignettes of how they had been educated to reply to sound/voice. “They can judge how far a person is by listening to his/her voice,” Sam says.
Since every participant had totally different ranges of visible incapacity it was not potential to reach at a uniform technique of instructing. So they had been made to work with clay to grasp their means in recreating issues in accordance with their creativeness.
Rarish, who has edited and produced the work, says, “It was amazing to see how the trainers made them understand space, that is how much to move, where to stand etc. For this floor mats of different textures were placed on the floor so that the participants could differentiate between spaces.”
One of the productions was a re-interpretation of the well-known story of the blind males and the elephant, narrated by Ramakrishna Paramahamsa. The second manufacturing was primarily based on bodily theatre and had no dialogues. It was the individuals themselves who composed the songs for the two performs.
3B Frames, a group theatre workshop for visually challenged organised in Thiruvananthapuram.
| Photo Credit:
Sreejith R Kumar
The poignant part of the documentary is the response of the individuals. While some are thrilled at having fulfilled their goals of changing into an actor, a few others categorical their shock over realising their potential. One of them says, “For some days I forgot that I cannot see.”
Rarish provides that the workshop was a studying expertise for the trainers as properly. They developed a new theatrical language. “What excited me the most was how they are going to use their new-found talent in their lives. One of the participants, a teacher, said that he did not know the importance of body language and gestures in communication. Now he knows how to make his classes interesting. The new-found confidence in the participants was the best takeaway of the workshop,” Rarish says.
