Theatre festival Sankalp-07 kicks off, website launched
Pulkit Vasudha
Ahmedabad, September 2:The annual theatrical extravaganza– Sankalp-2007 –is all set to take the centrestage in Ahmedabad once again. On Saturday, with Mudra Institute of Communication-Ahmedabad (MICA) launching the first website solely dedicated to Sankalp, the annual festival also kicked off with the students’ adaptation of Ed Monk’s popular play, ‘Cut’, getting a standing ovation by the audience. The entire production– from acting, direction, sounds, lights, music, costumes, marketing and production– was a collective effort of students.
This year, the students are taking their fest to a new level. The festival will be held over a period of three months and this time around, the theatre will be taken to the masses, outside the hallowed corridors frequented by the elite.
Various programmes, including street plays all across rural and urban Gujarat, will be held to highlight social issues. Street plays will be held from September 14-21 in shopping malls, colleges and villages, while in October, students will take their theatre outside the precincts of the State. The director of Sankalp-2007, Spandan Mishra said, “For the first time, Sankalp will travel to Mumbai.”
The Sankalp-2007 website, sankalp_mica.com, is dedicated to theatre buffs and will also have details of all the programmes which will be held under the banner of Sankalp-2007.
The launch of the website was followed by a panel discussion on the ‘Suspension of disbelief in theatre’.
Well-known theatre personalities like Rajoo Barot, Vinod Jahani, Soumya Joshi and Atul Tandon debated on whether theatre should be entertaining or educating. “Meaningful art can be full of entertainment,” said Joshi, a 33-year-old prodigal theatre personality. “The artist has as much prerogative to decide whether his art should be entertaining or educating, as the audience has to interpret it,”
In the past festivals, students have adapted plays by Girish Karnad, Vijay Tendulkar, Dharamvir Bharti and Woody Allen. The legacy of Sankalp has come a long way since 1999 when a trio of theatre enthusiasts organised their first theatre fest in the city. This legendary trio gave up lucrative management jobs to start a theatre group Evum which has taken Chennai by storm.
Source: Indian Express