THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Thirty students are attending a workshop for children ‘Bharatham’ organised jointly by ‘Thiruvarangu’ and Bharat Bhavan at ‘Thripthi’, Thycaud.
Various aspects of theatre, music in theatre and technicalities are taught and discussed by prominent theatre artists and playwrights like Kavalam Narayanan Panicker, Nedumudi Venu, Leela Panicker, Prasanth Narayanan and Sivadas Poyikkaavu in the workshop.
Among the topics discussed are scope of theatre as a part of Keraliya Nathya Padhati.
‘’Theatre is not to arouse one’s passion but it has a purpose and a meaning. It is a reflection of life and a search to find the real ‘you’ within. The attitude of the society toward theatre is importance because obsession with West changes our cultural history. Our cultural history is something which should be preserved,’’ said Prasanth Narayanan, the chairman of Thiruvarangu and the camp director.
Shalini Somanath, the camp analyst, said: ‘’We have a well-defined extremely rich classical culture in India and Western concepts of theatre had infiltrated into it. The camp is an attempt to promote Indian cultural space among children,’’ she said. Thirty students for the programme were selected from 100 applicants all over the state.
‘’We have arranged an interactive session for the children with actor Nedumudi Venu, who is also the patron of Bharat Bhavan’’ said Satheesh Babu Payyannur, member secretary.
Aadith A, a 8-year-old boy from Bharathiya Vidhya Bhavan, said: “I had written scripts for plays at school. I’m here because I want to learn more.’’
‘’Children are kept away from problems and therefore when confronted with them suffer depression. We hope our lessons here will help them overcome such problems,’’ said playwright Sivadas Poyikkaavu.