When we think of performance art, we generally visualise location as a proscenium stage or open air theatre or possibly contemporary settings such as aerial dance from the top of a building. What is out of sight and out of mind for most of us is the amazing performances mounted in the temporarily cleared spaces of communities to entertain while projecting responses to social issues.
You may have seen white face pantomime actors in Republic Day parades, Delhiites might even have seen them at the annual Trade Fair presenting skits on health and public safety, but the day in, day out performances of the Jagran Community Pantomime Theatre Company takes up hard core issues of sexual abuse, combating corruption, promoting literacy, health and more, to change hearts and minds.
The visual impact of performing arts leaves a lasting impact that words alone cannot convey. Scientific research has shown that visual memory is more powerful than non-visual. In fact, the methodology and structure of Jagran’s performances has been developed over 50 years to create a communication without any language barrier. It is a model that can be replicated anywhere in India, and abroad.
I can never forget one hilarious skit portraying a corrupt local shopkeeper hoarding rations from frustrated locals carrying empty plastic jugs yet always faced with the “out of stock” sign posted. He was a sleazy character straight out of commedia dell’arte with a giant pillow belly, typically tyrannizing his shop assistant and finally getting his comeuppance from the villagers.
This remarkable troupe was founded in 1967, by Aloke Roy, an artist who was challenged to find a medium that could break through language barriers to communicate social and development issues throughout villages of India at a time where there was no television, Internet and limited access to film and even radio.
When Aloka’s Parkinson’s advanced to the point where he could no longer manage Jagran, his son Arijit gave up his career in the United Kingdom to keep this importance pantomime dance-theatre work going. Fortunately his M.A. in Television and Video for Development from the University of Reading, United Kingdom, combined with growing up observing the challenges and successes of Jagran, enabled him to this work. With a focus on development communication, the actors themselves are recruited from slum clusters. These actors, who were not fortunate enough to have access to school, let alone college, are trained and sustained over decades as working professionals. Thinking of the national Skills Development, initiated by Dilip Chenoy and expanded by the government across the country, Jagran and other such community street theatre companies in every state could offer a similarly viable livelihood program for performers while educating communities.
A play about women’s safety at Maurya Enclave in Delhi.
Jagran has played a significant role in the Delhi Police’s Parivartan program since 2005 to increase awareness about women’s safety in the nation’s capital. The regular performances around Jahangirpuri draw a crowd of men and women of all ages with the dholki player’s percussion pulling in crowds as has been done in rural India over ages.
With Arijit at the microphone giving a running commentary as needed, a few skits are performed typically covering the trauma of spousal physical abuse, sexual abuse generally and the victimization of youth by drug use.
Sutradhar Arijit interjects questions to the audience, especially children, to respond to the negative actions and what action to consider.
We all know that societal changes can’t happen overnight but they always begin with consciousness raising.
An effective performance stimulates discussion afterwards amongst family and friends that plants the seeds of change.
Site-specific themes are tailored to audiences so a ten year old in Dakshinpuri slum can understand the horrors of smack addiction brought to life in mime while a show in a private school might get an object lesson on eating their vegetables.
Laughing out loud while feeling the pain; getting on the wrong bus or being given wrong medicine if illiterate communicates the message of the National Literacy Mission (NLM) especially when the skits escalate to how easily a moneylender bamboozles borrowers into bonded labour who have no idea of interest rates. NLM director-general Sudeep Banerjee has said “Wherever street theatre has created an impact, the literacy programme has taken off.”
Some years ago I took a group of expat middle school students to join in with the Jagran troupe to perform in a slum. After a few hours of training and rehearsal, they donned white face, saris and kurtas over their shorts and T-shirts. The dholak drew a sizeable crowd to a nearby open space where they acted out the failure of an elderly woman to judge the winner of kite competition because of eye cataract.
A few more hilarious examples of the difficulty of seeing got her children to take her for cataract surgery. The “doctor” aged 12, showed how the surgery works with a three foot eye on a panel, from which he removed a scarf covering the “iris”.
Success, happiness, recovered eyesight, the message that an operation costs only Rs 1,000 was a spectacular way for school children to perform community social service and relate to people outside their customary bubble zone.
Jagran workshops with students, on site and in school, have now become an annual feature for Shriram and British School students, allowing the Jagran troupe itself to expand its capabilities to educate through performance. They now occasionally add half- body and rod puppets to their repertoire after using these I designed in one of my Ramlila productions. Recently I visited their studio, located one floor above a needle exchange centre and night shelter, for one final rehearsal with full cast for a Khajuraho Shivratri Shiv Vivaha.
More significant than their performances abroad in theater and mime festivals and AIDS conferences in England, France, Australia, Switzerland, Denmark, Finland, Norway, Canada, Holland Malaysia and Mexico is the results of their community pantomime theatre here in India. Rajasthan, Gujarat, Himachal Pradesh, U.P, West Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana and Maharashtra have seen their work while Delhi is their base.
Keeping Jagran alive and thriving for 50 years has without a doubt been a huge challenge.
Their survival is also a triumph for all of us who want a healthy, moral, violence-free civil society and believe performing arts are part of creating this.
The writer is a respected exponent of Odissi, Manipuri and Mayurbhanj and Seraikella Chau whose four-decade career in India was preceded by 17 years of modern dance
nd ballet in the US and an MA in dance from the University of Michigan. She can be contacted at sharonlowen.workshop@gmail.com.
