Street theatre comes alive

The sound of sticks, drums and <g data-gr-id="35">dafli</g> create anticipation about what will happen next. The humble <g data-gr-id="36">nukkad</g> <g data-gr-id="37">natak</g> has evolved from being a crude form of entertainment to a kind of edutainment, incorporating new elements. 

Students in Delhi University have embraced street plays in a big way to spread awareness on burning social issues. The participation of students in street plays has risen over the years. Why is it that college youth prefer street plays to conventional theatre? 

According to theatre enthusiasts, the reason is the rise of awareness and urge among students to bring forth change gradually, if not directly. Gaurav Mishra from Asmita theatre group, who also judges of street-play competitions <g data-gr-id="82">explains</g>, “Street theatre is a direct platform to quickly interact with strangers who are on the move and have less time to spare. The groups present their work based on a particular theme <g data-gr-id="81">and in</g> the end of their performance, a discussion is held where a solution is devised.”

No doubt street-plays have become an important part of student life in universities, where they shed sweat under <g data-gr-id="77">harshest</g> sun and perform in oddest of places to showcase their talent.

The different colleges in universities have theatre societies that create, practice and execute street-plays. They test the potential of their play by performing in front of <g data-gr-id="74">random</g> crowd before actually performing them in front of the judges.

Aman <g data-gr-id="33">Bhatla</g> from College of Vocational studies, said, “New academic year has started and we have selected new members and are conducting workshops to groom them as this is the best time to do it.”

When it comes to themes and issues, how do the young students <g data-gr-id="30">come-up</g> with interesting topics and different presentation techniques?

The youngsters gladly leave their comfort zone (mind you, they study in top colleges of the country), squeeze out time from their hectic schedule to participate in <g data-gr-id="38">brain-storming</g> sessions with their team-mates, and come up with an interesting theme. This theme later takes the shape of an interactive script.

Aishwarya Hasija, who is from Gargi college, revealed, “We read a lot of newspapers and books to get ourselves updated, we then discuss our findings judiciously and short-list topics, then we research again on the selected topics and finally we divide the theme into small parts and then we collect the best parts to form a script.”