CHENNAI: Women who want to try something new this Women’s’ Day, be it meditation, acting, movement, expression etc, here’s your chance. Actor-movement director-rower Pooja Devariya, will be conducting a theatre workshop on fitness at Wandering Artist, RA Puram.
“I have been working on this project for almost three years. It is an active way of fitness training for those interested in acting and they’ll be able to learn a lot, but it will be equally engaging for others as well.”
The most fundamental aspect about acting is breathing and breath control. Pooja elucidates that Pranayama, stretches and muscle training will be the primary focus. “Many don’t realise that the tiniest of muscles supports the heaviest weight.
Learning and understanding about one’s body is important and this session will be a crash course of sorts where, people become aware of their own body,” explains the actor who was last seen in the movie Mo and Aandavan Kattalai (2016). Primarily a theatre artist, Pooja has been an extensive part of Stray Factory, a theatre group. “For me, theatre began in 2007.
I used to freelance, but gradually my interest grew and I joined the Stray Factory. Travelling for shows, doing residency programmes, interacting with other actors and theatre groups paved the way for me to build course material for this ‘fitness and theatre’ project,” she shares. Theatre is not just about the aesthetics, but also about being and feeling aware.
“This awareness comes through fitness and I want to reach out to aspiring artists. Breathing is important and when we realise and sustain it, you become more aware,” she adds.
Adding the fundamentals of different traditional practices of Singapore, Malaysia, Persia, Australia along with Kalari and Silaambattam, she says, “These cultures are so drastically apart, but they have the same fundamentals. I would like to bring that out in this project. With people always finding interesting ways of keeping fit, this could be an avenue to explore.”
Kicking off her first set of workshops today, she adds that her long-term goal is to conduct more workshops and also use her project as a database of actors, artists and fitness buffs to access.
“I will be conducting more workshops in the future. This way of fitness will not only help the individual, but also help in building a community as it’s predominantly done in group sessions.”
(The workshop will be conducted at the Wandering Artist, RA Puram from 6 pm
onwards. For details call: 9840111425)