Jammu, Dec 25: Natrang’s most sought-after winter theatre workshop for Children was inaugurated today at Natrang Studio Theatre with the lighting of traditional lamps by Natrang President and founder Director Padmashree Balwant Thakur who was joined by Neeraj Kant and Aarushi Thakur Rana.
In his inaugural address Balwant Thkaur said that this unique camp would provide an opportunity to children to enable them to explore their immense inner creative and artistic abilities. The timings of the camp will be 3 pm to 5pm daily and the children will have the occasion to get trained under professionally trained directors including accomplished actors/directors like Neeraj Kant, Anil Tickoo and Sumeet Sharma who are considered as one of the most accomplished theatre trainers and directors of children theatre. Mr. Sunny Mujoo will be the dance director of the workshop. The workshop is being coordinated by Mohd. Yaseen who is a National Scholarship and Fellowship holder in the field of Theatre.
Every year Natrang gives an opportunity to children to creatively utilise their winter break with learning beyond the textbooks. Similarly, this year too, Natrang is having a 15 day winter camp for children where they will work on personality development, confidence building, sharpening of communication skills, acting, play making process and much more with the help of highly innovative creative games and theatre exercises. Theatre is a sophisticated expression of basic human needs. For children it is an instinct to mimic and to tell stories through narratives and metaphors. This innate quality in children is enhanced and polished with the help of theatre. It is vital to understand that when phrases like ‘learning is fun’ and ‘play and learn’ are quoted, we can easily think of theatre as a means to learn in a child’s life. With the growing competition every teacher and parent is following the rule of thumb, to break this monotony Natrang introduces theatre to the kids which brings freshness to the child’s imagination and helps them to grow intellectually. Since every child is special, it is important that we encourage them to open up to the best of their ability by giving them confidence. Nothing can achieve that than the confidence a child gets by performing on stage.
During the winter camp, the children will learn and explore themselves through highly developed theatre exercises which are in vogue in Europe and USA. This winter Natrang has planned to produce a short play as the focus of the workshop will be play production with children.
It may be recalled that the longest living plays by children like ‘Mere Hisse Ki Dhoop Kahan Hai and ‘Aap Hamaare Hain Kaun’ are the proud productions of Natrang’s children theatre wing which are written and directed by Balwant Thakur. Those who attended the inaugural session of Winter Theatre Workshop included Advik Sharma, Mehak Chib, Araiya Shan, Dhanak Chandan, Vaibhav Mahajan, Ruhaan Chandan, Samkit Jain, Ruhani Jain, Nyra Gandotra, Nandita Mahajan, Kavish Sharma, Reevik Verma, Deeher Gupta, Dwijesh Dutta, Saanchi Dutta, Aaranaa Gupta, Sianet Magotra, Shikhar Mitdada and Priyal Gupta.
