At ThinkArts we, believe that children should have access to positive and high quality cultural experiences, as participants and as audiences, both now and of the future. The arts are essential for children to develop key skills such as empathy, emotional intelligence, adaptability and innovation, and to be able to experience their world in a fuller manner.
In 2020, it was difficult to predict when children would watch live performances or attend arts workshops again. One of the ways to tackle this gap was to disseminate arts content to children via the digital medium, through teachers in schools and for parents to access online.
With the support of Takshila Educational Society, ThinkArts launched the ThinkArts Grant for Artists and Theatre for Young Audiences Practitioners in India to create new digital content for children.
In 2020, it was difficult to predict when children would watch live performances or attend arts workshops again. One of the ways to tackle this gap was to disseminate arts content to children via the digital medium, through teachers in schools and for parents to access online.
With the support of Takshila Educational Society, ThinkArts launched the ThinkArts Grant for Artists and Theatre for Young Audiences Practitioners in India to create new digital content for children.
We were delighted to premiere the 8 new digital pieces.
The final pieces cover languages such as English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, and Gibberish, and forms such as clowning, theatre, puppetry, stop motion, animation and audio-stories.
Find more details on the pieces and our grantees below.
The final pieces cover languages such as English, Hindi, Bengali, Marathi, and Gibberish, and forms such as clowning, theatre, puppetry, stop motion, animation and audio-stories.
Find more details on the pieces and our grantees below.
|
Once Upon A Tide (English), by Art Apart: A puppetry and stop motion piece, about a family of turtles coming together for their father's 100th birthday. Tinnir Dupur (Bengali), by Jhalapala Theatre Group: A digital theatre piece centred around how a young woman spends an afternoon during the lockdown. |
|
Water Seed (Hindi), by Gillo Repertory Theatre:
A three-part stop motion piece, based on the story Water Seed based on the story by Munda Writers' Group: When the rains did not come, the young men of the village went in search of water. Bongo in the Congo (English), by Artistaan: An audio story centred around a young boy who loves playing his drum. Waste Warriors (English/Gibberish), by Nikita T Sarkar: A table-top play made using upcycled waste materials and ideas generated from a workshop with students from Dolphin International School, Pulwama. |
Nagad Dhuyya Raja (Marathi), by Tiny Tales:
A theatre performance based on the story of Nagad Dhuyya Raja, adapted from the story, Emperor's New Clothes. Today I Met A... (English), by Sandbox Collective: A puppetry piece in which characters interact with people who work in professions that are conventionally assigned to one particular gender. Mindy's Magical Yoga (English/Gibberish Sanskrit), by Ankita Nikrad: A clowning performance, around a clown's attempts to perform yoga for a live Facebook audience. 
|
A few words from our panellists:
“It has been an exciting adventure to dive into the dreams and aspirations of artists embracing the forced reality of our Covid times, by imaging ways to spread their creativity through the virtual medium. It was not an easy task to cull the applications down to just 8! I do look forward with great anticipation to see their outcomes. And here’s hoping ThinkArts will find more ways of growing the number of artists it can reach and assist to address this dire need of our times.”
- Sanjna Kapoor
"I must thank all the participants for offering us a most memorable opportunity to actually go through the incredibly amazing variety of concepts, ideas and ambitions. It is extremely reassuring to see the diversity and heterogeneity of creative minds. The fact that all of them are sincerely committed to creating memories for childhood and making the dark time not look menacing any more is what boosted up the whole process of select. We are all now eagerly waiting for the outputs." - Soumik Nandy Majumdar
“It has been an exciting adventure to dive into the dreams and aspirations of artists embracing the forced reality of our Covid times, by imaging ways to spread their creativity through the virtual medium. It was not an easy task to cull the applications down to just 8! I do look forward with great anticipation to see their outcomes. And here’s hoping ThinkArts will find more ways of growing the number of artists it can reach and assist to address this dire need of our times.”
- Sanjna Kapoor
"I must thank all the participants for offering us a most memorable opportunity to actually go through the incredibly amazing variety of concepts, ideas and ambitions. It is extremely reassuring to see the diversity and heterogeneity of creative minds. The fact that all of them are sincerely committed to creating memories for childhood and making the dark time not look menacing any more is what boosted up the whole process of select. We are all now eagerly waiting for the outputs." - Soumik Nandy Majumdar
INTRODUCING OUR 8 WONDERFUL GRANTEES!
Ankita Nikrad is a young theatre practitioner from Pune Maharashtra. she has been working in theatre since last 6 years and have perceived her graduation in Marathi Natya-shastra from Pune's Lalit Kala Kendra and a Diploma course in Folk Arts College Mumbai. She has been training in Clowning under physical theatre practitioner, Mr Rupesh Tilu for the last two years.
ARTistaan is a group of artists (Anant Raina, Anirban Ghosh, Subhadra Kamath, Shaaz Ahmed) who have got together to create arts curriculum for children. Their vision and mission is to democratize arts education and make it accessible to every child (using digital tools, innovative and immersive learning methodologies/pedagogy and experienced facilitators/teachers).
This particular idea has been developed by Subhadra Kamath, who is a musician, teacher (facilitator) and has been using the arts for more than 10 years as a tool to help people express themselves openly, connect with our surroundings and to understand and cope with our world better. |
Art Apart is a young visual art based initiative that currently self publishes story books and interactive cards. In most of these works, they have demonstrated narratives and concepts in a purely visual language, so that they can accommodate different perspectives and stories, depending on who is reading them. In this way, they hope that readers will be more engaged in the creative process and adapt the stories to their own lives.
Jhalapala is a Kolkata based theatre group for children aiming at making theatre activity a source of creative joy. Founded in 2nd November 1996, Jhalapala has sailed through a long and exciting way. As a center to peer the routes and roads of creative expression through which childhood blooms to its excellence, Jhalapala emerged as a place for vibrant theatre activities. Since then it is a continuous journey of learning, joy, and creativity.
|
Gillo Repertory Theatre works in Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA), creating performing arts experiences that engage children and young adults with theatre in particular and the arts in general. It was started in 2009 with a wish to create contextual content especially for children in India.
Sandbox Collective is a Bangalore-based arts collective. Besides creating, curating and producing performances, arts festivals, encounters and engagements centred around the arts they have also worked in the field of arts education for over 15 years (individually, and as a collective). They have worked as educators, workshop conductors, facilitators, writers and directors of work with and for children.
|
Nikita Teresa Sarkar is a graduate of Theatre Design and Direction from the National School of Drama, and is currently pursuing a diploma in Sustainability and Entrepreneurship under the Naropa Fellowship. In her various roles as educator, writer, and many more, she has emphasised subjects such as gender sensitisation and sustainability.
Started 3 years ago, Tiny Tales works with and for kids. They develop various theatre performances based on Children’s Literature, demonstrate the stories in front of children and give them the pleasure of a ‘live performance’ in their space, and in their surroundings. They have performed 130 shows and reached up to 54,000 children in Maharashtra till date.
|
