Third day of the Workshop-Theatrical skills in Education: Teachers should become Children says Bhavani

Bhavani demonstrating

The third and final day of the workshop was set aside for more of hands on activities. Bhavani Prakash a graduate of Nee na sam is a talented actor and a humanist. Soon after college she was selected on the year long Tirugaata (a series of repeat performances round the state). She was in the lead role of all the three plays chosen for that year and attracted many directors. Like she entered the small screen, she saw its heights and packed for good. Cinema had seen her talent and gave her preference while a special character was needed for the story. With a couple of Awards at the National level she now has a few films on hand that gives her enough time to enjoy gardening spending time with children. After five years she had time to get back to conducting Workshops.

 

Cows out of the cattle shed!

The Museum which is grim and silent most of the time started bubbling with laughter and joy when she addressed the teachers. They opened up for her joyful ways of introducing skills and volunteered to perform before the others.

Bhavani and the holy cow!

 After a brief round of warming up session she divided the team into three and asked them to improvise upon the story of Punyakoti. Each of the teams was given some time for rehearsal and later on they performed a sequence each. The teachers were seen at the height of creativity.  They improvised upon properties for a cow and the tiger alike. Leaves of Frangipani became the ears of cows while dry twigs became the horns. 

Punyakoti play!

Bhavani tells us that on many occasions’ teachers themselves have inhibitions and need to be worked with first. Many times the perception that teachers have is that theatre is something too performance-oriented which is an expert’s domain. Not a common old lad’s cup of tea. 

The cow and the tiger

This attitude often holds back many teachers. Her solution for this would be to get the teachers involved in activities to experience how drama is ‘done’ and later they can experiment with it for themselves. Many teachers, she says would not even have explored the possible frills they could get upon their faces and how would they know what each of those mean to an interacting person.

Teachers playing the cows!

The possible pedagogical value of Theater in Education is yet to be explored to its fullest potential. However, language, environment, social sciences are parts of the curriculum that can be easily transacted through various aspects of dramatics. 

Vani and Bhavani : All smiles!