THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Curtains went up on the eighth edition of the Theatre Olympics, which is taking place for the first time in India, at the Tagore Theatre here on Thursday.
Eight plays, including international and regional plays, will be staged as part of the festival, which is being hosted by the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi. In addition to this, various folk theatre forms such as Chhau (Purulia, West Bengal), Dashavtaar (Konkan, Maharashtra) and Nacha (Chhattisgarh) and non-verbal performances will also be staged.
The festival will conclude on March 1. Suresh Sharma, head of Theatre in Education Department, NSD; I&PRD director Subhash T V; D Reghoothaman, founder president of Abhinaya Theatre Research Centre, and veteran theatre director K Kaladharan jointly inaugurated the eighth edition. The opening play in Thiruvananthapuram is a Chhau performance, a dance form with dominant body movements inspired by various martial arts.
‘’Usually, Chhau performances present a mythological story and use of colourful masks and headgears,’’ the National School of Drama said in a statement.
Plays that are being staged in the fest include folk performances such as ‘Nacha’ (Jashiram Sahu), ‘Maharathi Karna’ (Shrimant Sasane) and international plays such as ‘Sukara Asapuwa’ (A Place with Pigs - Jehan Srikantha Appuhami, Sri Lanka) and ‘Let it be Art’ (Gregory Ables, US). ‘Kamsavadham Nangyarkooth’ (Sindhu T M), ‘Old Man and the Sea’ (Sasidharan Naduvil) and ‘Love Your Nature’ (Y. Sadanand Singh) also will be staged.