Bengal Repertory is to connect with new audience once again

Theatre is considered to be a minority art but it plays a major role in developing an individual and the society without any doubt. Because of this lockdown and social distancing,students are getting used to all the modern learning platforms or mediums, but sill they are feeling a void of the classrooms and

 traditional learning processes. Bengal Repertory never wanted to bound their theatre practice only in the proscenium space but their motto had always been to connect with the most possible rural area in search of new audience. Rik Amrit, who is the artistic director of the group, has already dedicated his first published play 'Ashwatthama: the war machine' to those audience in future, and in search of those audiences, they are travelling to the various places of West Bengal for the last three seasons to manifest their path breaking idea of Destination Theatre. Now they are ready with 'Natya Dhara 2021, the 4th National Destination Theatre Festival, with six major theatrical and dance performances. The details of the productions are as follows-

Samvatsar Kathaa

(Reconstruction  of  Upa-rūpaka  Rāmākrīḍa) 

Artistic Director :PiyalBhattacharya

Group:Chidakash Kalalay

Rasakali

Name of director :DrUjjalMukherjeeGroup: Birbhum Sanskriti Bahini, labpur

Daakghar

Name of director :Partha Gupta

Group: Birbhum Blossom Theatre

~Vanu Sundarir Pala (Romio & Juliet)

~Original Text-William Shakespeare

Group: Chakdaha Natyajan

Nakshi Kathar Math

Written by- Jasimuddin

Directed by —Rajib Bardhan

Group: Jadavpur Manthan

Raavan

Directed by —Harshal Vyas

Group: Samanvay Dance Company

Rik Amrit has specifically mentioned,  "the practice of theatre in West Bengal has always been divided into two major streams as per their origin, one is Theatre in Kolkata and the other is Theatre in rest of the Bengal. Somehow the theatre practices in Kolkata almost fall in same genre, but for rest of the Bengal was never same. Bengal is very much reach and diversified with its own Indigenous culture. So being a theatre group of the city, we always intended to cultivate the roots to enrich ourselves as artists. They have a lot to give, and we want to nurture ourselves in their laps. We are not against the Kolkata Theatre Culture but we believe that the pseudo discrimination of elitism between these two streams of theatre practices should be wiped off. We are blessed with the financial support by MoC, GoI; so there will be no ticketing system. But we are very strict to maintain the covid guidelines published by the Ministry of Health."

Natya Dhara is a theatre festival showcasing Young Directors’ drama productions based on Indian as well as world classics. The event will be held in an interesting venue of Bengal. The said venue is a art campus inside a village area of Daranda, Birbhum district. It will be a 3-days event with the aforesaid experimental outdoor performances from 12th to 14th March 2021. There will be allied academic and entertainment events like seminar, folk dance & music as well. Mr. Ratan Thiyam, the legendary theatre practitioner will be inaugurating the festival this year.