NEW DELHI THEATRE WORKSHOP

presents

VIKRAMORVASHI (by Kalidasa) in Sanskrit.

On April 18. At Ranga Shankara.

Anjana Rajan was trained in Bharatanatyam at Kalakshetra, Chennai, and counts as her good fortune the opportunity to interact with and learn under the direction of its inspiring founder-director, the late Smt. Rukmini Devi Arundale.
Theatre is a parallel stream in her work, to which she was introduced as a child by her father, late playwright/director Lalit Mohan Thapalyal. Inspired by the approach to stage arts taught at Kalakshetra, Anjana felt a natural attraction to dance-theatre and the exploration of stylised forms of acting.
She has worked with theatre practitioners and students, introducing them to movements based on Bharatanatyam and ways to make the body ‘speak’, an experimental technique evolved from her training in classical dance.
She is a member of the visiting faculty of the National School of Drama, where she has helped various batches discover a vocabulary of physical expression as part of their Classical Indian Drama course.
She has choreographed for a number of K.S. Rajendran’s productions that try to recreate a classical Sanskrit theatre technique — among them, Kalidasa’s “Vikramorvashiyam” in Hindi by 2nd year students of NSD (2008), H.S. Shiva Prakash’s “Madhavi” in English (2009) by New Delhi Theatre Workshop; and “Vikramorvashiyam” in Sanskrit (2011, 2012). The significant element of the last two plays was the combined use of various classical genres such as Odissi, Kathak and Bharatanatyam in one, and Bharatanatyam, Kathakali and Mohiniyattam in the other.
In the winter of 2010-11 she choreographed and appeared in a dance theatre production of “Daar Se Bichhudi”. This Hindi production, which she co-directed with K.S. Rajendran, was based on the eponymous novel by celebrated author Krishna Sobti.
Anjana is closely associated with Sadhana Natya Kala Kendra, a Sahibabad-based theatre group founded by her father. She also conducts Sadhana’s weekend theatre club for children. Her dance theatre presentations with children include “Jangal Desh Hamara”, “Jadoo Ka Dweep”, “Ekta ki Udaan”, “Suno Kahani” among others.
Anjana works for the English language daily The Hindu, where she is part of the Features team. She has written on performing arts and artists, with a special focus on India’s classical dance and music forms, for over a decade. Her other areas of interest include theatre in education, and the ways in which the arts can be integrated into academics and projects for social uplift.
Prof. K.S. Rajendran teaches at the National School of Drama. He is a well known director of plays in various Indian languages. An alumnus of the National School of Drama, where he teaches Dramatic Literature, he has worked extensively with the Chennai-based theatre repertory Koothu-p-Pattarai. In 2007 he founded the New Delhi Theatre Workshop, which has presented well received productions such as “Madhavi”, “Daar se bichhudi,” ‘’UrvaShe’’ and “Chimtewale Baba”.
His directorial work ranges from adaptations of Shakespeare, Brecht, Ionesco and Genet to contemporary playwrights and authors such as Omchery, Shankara Pillai, Shiva Prakash, Tendulkar, Alekar, Kambar, Indira Parthasarathy and Lalit Mohan Thapalyal, besides Sanskrit classics by Kalidasa and Shudraka.
He has conducted workshops and lectured on theatre in India and abroad. He was the Course Director of the UNESCO ITI workshop on Ancient Indian Drama
held in Bucharest in 2006. In 2008, he conducted the National Workshop on Sanskrit Play Production for the Sanskrit University at its Sringeri campus.
His recent productions include ’’ Aurangzeb’’ , ‘’uttara rama charitam’’,’’ vikramorvashi’’, “Suvarottikal”, “Shakara: The Dance Hall Queen” “Mother Courage” and ‘’Richard III’’, presented at the Second International Theatre Festival organised by GATS at Beijing in September, 2011.
While working on his research project, ‘Theatre of the Dravidian Movement ‘ (1985–87), he was a Fellow at the Tamil Nadu Council of Historical Research.