MT News Service
Jammu, July 17:
Natrang’s National Theatre Talk Show, ‘Young Voices of Theatre’ featured an enterprising alumni of National School of Drama, theatre actor, director and designer, Vidisha Purohit today who shared her inspirational thoughts with the global audience at the Facebook page of Natrang Jammu. Director Natrang, Balwant Thakur informed that till now, this talk show has featured 40 acclaimed young voices of theatre spread across the country who have earned a distinctive name for themselves as actors, directors, designers or technicians through their outstanding contribution in the field of contemporary theatre. He asserted that the new generation of Indian theatre practitioners are not only well qualified but are also globally exposed and hoped that this effort of Natrang will enliven theatre activity in India.
In a statement issued to mercury times, Vidisha Purohit is a contemporary Theatre artist, designer, director and performer who started her creative journey with a certificate course at Sagar Film & TV Academy, Vadodra in Gujarat. With a dream of becoming an artist, a performer since her childhood, she graduated in Performing Arts with specialisation in Acting from J.G. College of Performing Arts, Ahmedabad. Post graduate in Design and Direction from National School of Drama, New Delhi in 2016, Vidisha has the credit of working with different theatre groups, where she directed, designed and performed with National and International artists in various productions. Founder of ‘Piyali Collaborative Art’, Vidisha focuses on collaborative art in various experimental art forms with an ultimate goal to improvise the environment for women working in this field, enabling them to grow on better platforms. She conducted a theatre workshop on the theme “Women: The Untapped Reservoirs of Talent” in Vadodra in 2018.
In an engaging conversation with Natrang’s senior artist Neeraj Kant, Vidisha narrated her eventful journey of theatre. She fondly remembers that as a child, while watching theatre shows on Gujarati TV, she used to imitate the same scenes with her friends. Thus, curiosity was raised and she pursued the same as a career. She shared that being excited about doing theatre and getting professionally trained in it, she started her preparations to be selected in NSD while she was in college. She recalls that it was an awesome experience of training at NSD which also provided an opportunity to work with the eminent theatre personalities of the country. Vidisha always wanted to express herself and theatre was the only medium for this, so she opted to work in her hometown Ahmedabad rather than going to Mumbai in search of projects. She established “Piyali Collaborative Art” and started working with the youth, where she trains them and directs plays with them. She has conducted a few workshops with children also, but didn’t direct any play as she believes that while working with children, she learnt more than what she taught them and she is always eager to work with them. She shares that there is a tradition of commercial theatre in Gujarat but audiences want to watch entertaining performances rather than absurd and thought provoking plays as they don’t want to think much while getting entertained, so developing an audience for a different taste was a hard task for her. But she tried to fetch the audience and remained successful a little bit in this. Vidisha is always keen to work on the local folk traditions like Bhawai and Garbha etc. She was of the opinion that everyone should do theatre, as it not only produces actors, it has the prowess to convert people into real good human beings.
Natrang’s dedicated team who is managing this national event includes Suresh Sharma, Neeraj Kant, Anil Tickoo, Sumeet Sharma, Sanjeev Gupta, Vikrant Sharma, Mohd Yaseen, Brijesh Avtar Sharma, Gauri Thakur and Chander Shekhar. Theatre, film and TV actor, director and writer, National School of Drama alumni, Rakesh Chaturvedi Om would be featured in this talk show on 18th of July, 2021.
