“Presently in India, there is an ignorance and lack of awareness regarding the richness and diversity of Arts. As citizens of India, we can no longer afford to ignore the importance of the arts and must concentrate all possible energies and resources towards creating cultural and artistic awareness among every one of the country irrespective of the age and gender before we come to the sorry realization that we are a culturally illiterate society. It is high time the people of India awake to teaching arts from younger age in main stream school curriculum, otherwise art in India will die.
The need to integrate art education in all level of our lives if we want to retain our unique cultural identity and its richness.– National Council for Education, Research and Training”-NCERT, National focus group on ART, MUSIC, DANCE and THEATRE.
Indian theatre is 5000 years old and has suffered a setback for the past 30 years, and significantly deteriorating in the past 15 years.
“As a social responsibility we all should awake and uphold the Indian art and culture” feels Mrs.Vimala Britto, the Managing Director of St. Britto’s Academy.
At St. Britto’s Academy we have been doing this for the past 17 years right from our inception when we had 30 students. Last year we made around 2600 students to perform variety of programs on stage to showcase their talents.
St. Britto’s Theatre Academy’saim is to enhance theatre arts among people of all age groupand the students of all schools and colleges. The Academy has with extravagant in-house facilities for dubbing, recording, editing, costumes designing, Properties & Accessories, Set properties, and with an air conditioned hall and an elite auditorium with 750 seated capacities.
This year, we have proposed to conduct 2 plays; one among them is the bilingual – “RAJA PERIGAI” by Sandilyan. This play focuses on the 300 years history of Pre independent India and the importance of unity and brotherhood.
The 2nd play for young students titled “WINGS OF LOVE” which focuses on spreading love to all in the world.
The uniqueness of this attempt is that we are getting the students (actors) aging from 8 years till 20 years take part in this live plays. The whole concept is rewritten to suit the understanding of the children and invoke a kind of curiosity and innovation in them. Though training this huge number of young minds on a serious historical play was nearly impossible, we have done it with the help of dedicated resources.
A total of 7 shows will be staged at Kamarajar Arangam on the 29th, 30th and 31st of January 2015.
The first show on 29th January is inaugurated by ACTOR VISHAL.
The evening show on 29th January 2015 will have DIRECTOR K S RAVIKUMAR and UTV DHANANJEYAN to be present.
The details of the shows would be as mentioned below:
Date Day Time Show Number of Actors
29.1.2015 Thursday 10.00 – 1.00 pm RajaPerigai – English 130
5.00 – 8.00 pm RajaPerigai – Tamil 130
30.1.2015 Friday 10.00 – 1.00pm Wings of Love 120
3.00 – 5.00pm RajaPerigai – English 130
6.30 – 9.30 pm RajaPerigai – Tamil 130
31.1.2015 Saturday 10.00 – 1.00 pm Wings of Love 120
3.00 – 5.00 pm Wings of Love 120
Objectives of St.Britto’s Theatre Academy:
Vimala Britto while speaking to us said that St.Britto’s Theatre Academy is to give our youth the ability to appreciate the richness and variety of artistic traditions as well as make them liberal, creative thinkers and good citizens of the nation. She also added that the academy is to promote self-confidence, imagination, concentration, self-discipline, social concern and problem-solving ability. She expressed that the academy would enhance communication and thinking skills.
Vimala Britto mentioned that the academy is also to bring in the concept of social awareness with concern towards the society. It is said that it would facilitate learning experience through art, reflecting emotions of the students and to bring about discipline and to collaborate knowledge and experience.
