Theatre Jam: Storytelling workshop with Pritham Chakravarty - Improvisations
Director: nagaraj
Duration: 00:19:16; Aspect Ratio: 1.333:1; Hue: 42.083; Saturation: 0.090; Lightness: 0.395; Volume: 0.284; Cuts per Minute: 3.426; Words per Minute: 109.204
Summary: Theatre Jam was a public spaces initiative initiated by Maraa (
http://maraa.in) in 2009 with the hope of getting urban performers of all kinds to meet in public places to share skills and perform. In our times, when access and skill sharing within the arts is getting limited and commercialised, we felt creativity was also getting compromised. Theatre Jam arose out of one such need - to create a space that would foster collaborations and a spirit that nurtured creativity. We see Theatre Jam as something collaborative, for visual artists, theatre artists, musicians, poets and photographers.
Theatre Jam turned a year old in October 2009 and to mark this, we conceptualised diverse activities that comprised a 31-day marathon. Maraa also worked on getting travelling artists and local artists' groups to collaborate, propose or execute activities, and perform at various sites in the city! Our approach was community friendly and inclusive. The larger plan was to create a culture of expression and exchange between artists in the city and make public spaces more culture friendly, thus reclaiming them and initiating dialogue.
Pritham Chakravarthy, theatre performer, activist and a professor at the Ramanaidu Film Institute, Hyderabad, participated in Theatre Jam, to do what she does best: storytelling. Pritham also performed in the course of her short stay, both at Jaaga and Cubbon Park. She conducted a story telling workshop which was free and open to the public. In this video, workshop participants do short improvisational performances.
group work for improvisations.
Cubbon Park, Bangalore
October Jam
Theatre Jam
improvisation
public spaces
storytelling
theatre
workshop
For this improvisation exercise, Pritham told us a story about how the dogs of London ended up exchanging their tails, which is why, in order to search for their original tails, they go around sniffing each other's bums. As an exercise, we were asked to add to the story and tell it in our own way. We could add any amount of masala we wanted, paying attention to every detail. We had to work in groups.
In this video, first you will see the groups working on their improvisations, practising and discussing their stories. And then, later, you see the presentations of each group and their storytelling styles.
m: will you shut your mouth
dev: i don't even have a tail, this is.... i don't know what i'm carrying
deepak: i think this is my tail...
didi: no no no i don't want to exchange yours with mine.
m: don't come to me. i have many other issues... like dharmendra
deepak: this is my tail
dev: this is not even a tail for god's sake.
r: you can start chasing me if you want.
deepak: this is my tail
Who let the dogs out (song)
Deepak: (whines) This is not my tail.
Yellow shirt guy: (barks) Why are you weeping? Look at me…we have other issues.
Blue shirt girl: Boys, guys, what is the matter. Even I didn't get my tail and this is so dirty and not looking (good) with my fur.
Plaid shirt guy: This is not a tail that I'm carrying. I think I got a twig when I was running down the hill. A branch. Is this… is this a tail?
(dog whining)
White scarf girl: I lost my tail. Where it has gone?
Blue dress girl: Is it a bushy tail? Is it a bushy tail?
Deepak: I think that is my tail.
(background: That one's Mine)
Yellow shirt guy: Don't come near to it. (barking)
Deepak: I think that is my tail.
Yellow shirt guy: I want my tail.
Plaid shirt guy: Is this a tail or a branch? Can you help me? Is that mine?
Deepak: No I think that is my tail.
Blue dress girl: I want my tail.
Yellow shirt guy: No that is not yours.
Blue Dress girl: No, no, no, this is your tail.
(Whining, walking around sniffing, then clap, stop and stand up)
Deepak: Hahaha. All you dogs keep searching for your tails, eternally! Ha ha ha ha!
(bend and run out, growling and asking: Where is my tail? Can you help me? Is that my tail?)
(clapping)
Blue shirt girl: I'm in love with people because of my tail.
Yellow shirt guy: That's silly
Blue shirt girl: You are silly. (barks)
Yellow shirt guy: Go, go. It's so, so immature.
Blue shirt girl: It's not immature. You're jealous of my tail. You're jealous! You're jealous!
Pink shirt girl: Let's stop fighting about this. If we want to discuss it let's talk about it in a civilized manner.
Green shirt girl: I think we should meet about this. We get the dogs of all over the world. We meet, we meet, we meet, and we can't talk all over the world. I mean we need to have an international perspective on this, right?
(barking)
Green shirt girl: But where?!?
Blue shirt girl: Mountain!
Yellow shirt guy: Secret!
Green shirt girl: That's expensive. No meat, no whiskey. Less expensive? OK,OK. So we'll have it in Scotland. But remember, none of the other creatures and animals need to know about this. It's a secret, OK? So we inform only our friends, all over the world. Ya? Ya? Go on!
Yellow shirt guy: (barks and dials cell-phone) Secret. Operation mountain-fire.
Green shirt girl: (On cell-phone) You need to go straight, on top of there. There's a field on the left side. Come straight down, we're all here, we're all waiting for you. (two people come) Hello! You've found the place! Wow, nice hey? Ok, we start?
Yellow shirt guy: You see, tails are silly, plain silly. We don't need them. We don't need to show our emotions. No, no emotions.
Blue shirt girl: Do you think I don't need a tail? I look so pretty? I express my emotions, my feelings, when…what I like…
Green shirt girl: I think…you know what the tail does?
Blue shirt girl: Dogs are made to be loved.
Yellow shirt guy: No emotion. You're wrong. You're watch dogs.
Green shirt girl: We can shape it the way we want! Ya, we can do so many things with a tail. We can spike it, perm it, straight it, so many things we can do with a tail.
(someone else enters)
Yellow shirt guy: See isn't it silly? It is silly.
Blue shirt girl: You're just attracted to me because of my tail.
(Yellow shirt guy barks)
Green shirt girl: Why did you do that?
Yellow shirt guy: Hey, what's going on? No, it doesn't matter. Too much distraction, that's what I'm saying. Tails are too much of a distraction. No tails.
Green shirt girl: What do we do with that now? I mean how can we take it…?
Yellow shirt guy: No tails.
Green shirt girl: So you're saying we could put it somewhere?
Yellow shirt guy: Yes. Why don't you…we all put our tails somewhere and then come back and discuss properly without distraction.
Green shirt girl: There's a room I know! Is it that room you mentioned there? It's a secret. OK, OK, we'll go put our tails away. Stay right here! And anyways, we're not happy.
(green shirt girl and blue shirt girl leave)
Yellow shirt guy: (on mobile) Secret location: top of the hill, operation mountainfire.
(green shirt girl and blue shirt girl come back)
Green shirt girl: I feel like something's missing in me. I already feel sad.
Yellow shirt guy: See! No distractions!
Green shirt girl: I'm missing my tail.
Yellow shirt guy: Let's discuss. No going outside. No pee breaks. No cigarettes. Nothing.
Green shirt girl: Whiskey?
Yellow shirt guy: Ya, whiskey you can have. Ok. Like we were discussing…
(barking)
Blue shirt girl: Look at who's coming! Oh no! There's smoke! There's smoke!
Yellow shirt guy: Who is outside? Why did you go outside?
Pink shirt girl: There's something burning!
Yellow shirt guy: Why did you go outside of the building?
Green shirt guy: Hey, it's our tails burning!
(shouting and running)
Green shirt girl: Our tails are still there! My tail! Save the one! Save the tail! Just grab whatever you can!
coughing..
chief: have you seen the kids these days? have you seen their tails?
everyone: yes...
whiskey: its the same story man
chief: shut up whiskey! does anyone know why we lost our tails.
dog 1: i don't want to remember that.
whiskey: don't tell everyone that. i'm tired of this yaar!
chief: we don't have tails. we have led a sad deprived life without tails whiskey
whiskey: i understand but nothing's going to change anyway
chief: back then in our old activist times:
twaing twaing.....
everyone: banni banni... bala bichi
dog 1: do you have any idea how insecure we are how unsafe we are? we cannot have sex in public. people throw stones at us.
chief: people stare at us
dog1: we need some private space.
chief: and we demand the term doggy style be removed.
whiskey: and one week full Cubbon Park only for ourselves.
dog 1: oh yea! no throwing stones at us
chief: no looking at us...
whiskey: when we're doing it on the road, every time staring...
dog 1: so what we do now, we call all the dogs of the world, we have a conference and see what best we can do
banni banni
bala bichi
banni banni kathe kaeli
chief: as a show of solidarity, we will hang our tails up there
whiskey: where to hang tails?
chief: temptations... ask Raghu (temptations is a stand-and -drink bar in Bangalore. raghu is the popular waiter there.)
whiskey: i don't have tail you see... long time back only it got cut.
dog 1: ya my tail also got cut because i was too hyper active and they thought if they cut my tail, i'll be active
whiskey: i'll tell you one thing. see.... aye.. go there.. go ... go..
you know hat happened.. i don't have tail. so no girls fall in love with me. you know tail is prestige...
chief: whiskey...
whiskey: haan yes yes...
banni banni...bala bichi
dogs barking...
dog 1: look at the fire... look at the fire
screaming....
laughing
dog 1: you lit the fire right... you burnt all our tails?
chief: and that is the story about how we lost our tails, thanks to whiskey. and we still can't have sex in public!
sawmya: so umm.. the delimma was that dogs have tails and they didn't know why they have tails because they'd never known why they have tails... and... from generatuons to generation it carried on that they were always questioning, "why? whats the purpose of our tails?"
WOOF
but they never got an answer. so one generation from the 21st century decided, "it was high time! from generations we've been trying to find out- what's the purpose of our tails? but this generations, we have to do something about it.
sukhmani: so they decided that all the dogs of the world should meet. so they sent out their secret barking code. all through the world, invite everyone to go to antartica. wny antartica you say? because they had to be secluded. they had to be away from the world. it was a matter of life and death and of future generations. future generations are very important. so... they decided to meet at antartica. how to get there? don't ask me that... they somehow got there.
ashwini: a hot air baloon
sukhmani: yes, hot air baloon. but the questions was. it is very cold in antartica. how will all the dogs who cannot handle cold be there. so the whole thing of fashion came up. so they'll wear clothes, ok, then they ahve to ahve good clothes. so they took one year to preapare for that conference. Anyway they would have taken a long time for the secret code to reach everyone. they had to tell everyone by the word of bark.
sawmya: and you forgot, what happened to all the dogs who had a lot of fur.now they couldn't wear any new clothes...
sukhmani: and they were jealous of the people with all the fancy clothes. so they had to do something, so they all got fancy haircuts and all, got gelled up...
ashwini: some got piercings and all
sawmya: and some of them shaved off all their hair so that they could wear some nice clothes
sukhmani: so they all got there finally. and....
sawmya: they decided to meet in a very special spot in antartica...
ashwini: it was a big lake... they were all skating there. when they first saw each other, they were like ooh aaah... "this dog is like... ears.. this dog is this... so they were all you know engaging with themseleves.
sukhmani: but there were some naturalists also, who believed they were going there for a cause and they didn't care. they thought aw these stupid dogs wearing fancy clothes....
ashwini: the barks! the different kinds of barks with all the bass and trebles...
sukhmani: oh cacophony
sawmya: oh my god! it was like
woof woof.. (everyone starts barking in different ways)
ashwini: even though the emotions were same, the barks were all different. some were like oiiinn, some were like HAAW, SOME WERE LIKE...
sukhmani: and finally the bull dog arose, almighty... he went and sat down on that rock and everyone was quite.
ashwini: he was the speaker... and there were these snopw dogs who were living in antartica... they were incharge of all security...
sukhmani: they knew the place...
ashwini:because they had to keep the penguins away and the penguins from that long distance, they're all in a circle and they're like...
sawmya: ... curious what's happening...
ashwini: they had never seen anything like this before.
sukhmani: so then came the first presentation...
sawmya: so the labrador got up and said, " arre yaar its very clear what our tails are for. don't we always emote with our tails. when i'm happy and i love my owner, im like woof woof (super-excited bark)
ashwini: woof (angry)
sawmya: and when i'm sad which is usually because i'm hungry, my tail goes quitely hanging.... and my owner knows, so obviously the tail is for emotions, what is there to discuss?
sukhmani: aye, you do this all the time with me man. i don't ahve a tail. you can't leave me out like this all the time.. you .. you... this is conspiracy, i also emote, i also have feelings, haan? and you pomeranian.. you don't only emote with your tail, u even bark and emote, you both at the same time.
ashwini: you don't know, if he's angry he barks, if he's happy he barks, everytime he barks.
pom: woof woof woof
sukhmani: we emote by barking also, you can't say just like that. i think its for cleaning purposes.
sawmya: no i think its like kangaroos, this on it, we should try sitting on it...
ashwini: beacause there is some gap when we're sitting right, so the tail comes like...
sukhmani: you know what i think... i think we should ahve our own freedon. what is this, why should we have one purpose. what do u say mr. pomeranian?
pom: we should ahve it free to do in situations. it all depensds on us.
sukhmani:we can be creatve in life, we can create different purposes.
pom: we're free.
ashwini: let it be...use it as an accessorie, use it for cleaning, use it for...being attractive... anything is fine right?
you know my father says... {in hindi} kutton ki shaan unki tail hai} a dog's pride is his tail... i mean i know you don;t ahve a tail... but...
sukhmani: laughing... lets cut...
clapping....
pritham: ok, we're breaking for lunch....
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