New additions to the company
We are happy and excited to share that Saudamini Kalra joined us as an Associate Director starting June this year.
Saudamini Kalra is a performing artist and writer working primarily in the spaces of theatre and theatre-based learning. She co-founded The Meat Puppet Company, a Mumbai-based theatre collective, in 2015, under which she wrote and directed the plays “Whole Sum Parts”(2015) and “Kalpana Aur Uski (dost) Yonika” (2018), and wrote and performed in “The Auditions” (2016). Between 2017 and 2019, she was based out of Goa where she worked with HH Art Spaces on visual/performance art projects for the Serendipity Arts Festival, INLAKS Foundation, and others.While in Goa, she formed the Siolim Sisters collective along with London-based artist Neena Percy, collaborating on various video, audio and photo performances, some of which were shown at the Thames-Side Studios Gallery in London.
In 2019, as a participant of the First Draft Writer’s Lab by Indian Ensemble, she wrote the play “Seb Ke Beej”. Dramatized readings of the play were held at Bangalore International Centre and Studio Tamasha, Mumbai.
In January 2020, she performed her solo work “The Performance is Cancelled” at the Klimahalle Climate Justice Conference in Bern, Switzerland.
We are now inviting applications for our training program First Draft: An Idea Development Lab.
Click here to read the call for applications in English
Click here to read the call for applications in Kannada
Last Date for Applications: June 25 ‘2020
The Lab starts from Sept 15th ‘2020.
*Please read the call for applications before applying to the lab.
*In case of any queries, please write to indianensemble@gmail.com
New additions to the company
We are super thrilled and happy to announce that Shubham Roy Choudhury has joined us as the Executive Director, starting from May 2020.
Shubham is an arts manager, curator, film historian and writer. He has a Masters in Film Studies from Jadavpur University and an advanced degree in Cultural Studies from Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta. He was a Global Cultural Fellow (2017-2018) at the Institute for International Cultural Relations, University of Edinburgh. He served as a Senior Programme Officer with the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore
EET began with the idea of creating a space for critical and enriching conversations by engaging with artists, academics, thinkers and theorists to expand the discourse on creative and cultural processes, while keeping a piece of the text at the center of it. The themes we tackled included censorship, community engagement, digital humanities, philosophy, gender and sexuality, among many others. In August 2019, the curatorial reigns of the programme was handed over to Sunayana Premchander, a writer, director and also the Artistic Director of KathaSiyah, a theatre company she founded with Karen D’Mello in 2015. This shift in curatorial leadership, coupled with a newfound kindred spirit in Bangalore International Centre as a venue partner, opened up a completely new vision for the programme.
Take a look at the work we did in 2019 and our plans for 2020.
Click here to read it : Indian Ensemble Annual Round-up Newsletter – 2019
Updated notes from Term 1 & 2 of the Idea Development Lab at Indian Ensemble.
Click here to read the blog: https://firstdraftidea.home.blog/
Notes compiled and edited by : Yash Kumbhat & Varsha Ramachandran
Chanakya Vyas, Artistic Director of Indian Ensemble has been selected for this year’s Directors Lab programme at the Lincoln Centre Theatre to be held from Aug 5-24 in New York City. He has received a grant from the Ratan Tata Trusts, towards partial support to attend the program.
Abhishek Majumdar’s new play Pah-La commissioned by the Royal Court Theatre, London premiered on April 2nd and runs until April 27th at the Royal Court.
The production has been directed by Debbie Hannan.
‘As his drama about riots in Tibet is finally staged, we meet the fearless writer’-click here to read an interview with Abhishek Majumdar.
‘Fascinating Tibetan drama sets theatre ablaze’ – click here to read a review of the play by Michael Billington.
Here’s the final list of participants who have been shortlisted for the First Draft: An Idea Development Lab by Indian Ensemble
Chanakya Vyas, Artistic Director was in conversation with RJ Darius Sunawala on Fever 104 FM
Call for Applications in English: First Draft – An Idea Development Lab
Call for Applications in Kannada
The Lab commences on 15th May ‘2019
Last Date for Applications: 15th Feb ‘2019
*Please read the call for applications before applying to the lab. In case of any queries, please write to indianensemble@gmail.com
Indian Ensemble Annual Round-up Newsletter – 2018-19
Econ0mic Times Prime does a story on our play ALGORITHMS and the questions it raises around the gig economy
Read it here: ET Prime
Indian Ensemble was invited at the Interlude Festival by Srishti Inst. of ARt, Design and Tech on 13th Dec’2018 to read a few excerpts from the play ‘ALGORITHMS’ followed by a discussion with Aditi Surie from IIHS, Bangalore.
Indian Ensemble was invited to the IIHS Publics talk series on 22nd October at IIHS Campus, Sadashivnagar, where excerpts from the play ‘Algorithms’ were read followed by a discussion on the history of the technological present and the way it is represented in theatre, sci-fi, comics etc. The conversation was moderated by Aditi Surie and on the panel were Padmini Ray Murray and Chanakya Vyas.
Click here for more details.
Our new play ‘Algorithms’ premiered at Ranga Shankara on 16th October’2018.
Here’s a preview of the play in TOI: Click here
Chanakya Vyas took over as the Artistic Director of Indian Ensemble on April 2nd ‘2018. He was the Associate Artistic Director at Indian Ensemble since 2015.
Abhishek Majumdar and Sandeep Shikhar are currently the Artistic Directors of Bhasha Centre, a new company they co-founded in June’2018. Vivek Madan is the Executive Director of Bhasha Centre.
Vivek Madan joined as the Executive Director of Indian Ensemble in Dec’ 2016.
Mayura Baweja joined as a Dramaturg on the next production titled ‘Algorithms’. Mayura Baweja is an actor, writer, director based in Bangalore since 2015. She has been engaged in theatre work, performance practice and film in India, U.S., and Singapore for over a decade.
AWARDS
‘Muktidham’ won two awards at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards ‘ 2018 held in New Delhi.
Best Original Script – Abhishek Majumdar
Best Supporting Actor – Kumud Mishra
We congratulate the entire team for being a part of this journey and to India Foundation for the Arts for supporting us in the making of the play and helping us reach out to audiences across the Northern part of India early this year.
\
REVIEWS
Muktidham reviewed
at the META festival – Blog
at the Studio Safdar show in the Scroll by Malini Nair
ARCHIVES
Mi’raj – Review in The Hindu by Sammita Srivastava
#supernova – Review in First Post by Asim Siddiqui
Kaumudi – Review in Mumbai Mirror by Shanta Gokhale
Abhishek Majumdar’s interview in Man’s World magazine