Art & Culture: Youth Brigade Lead Art Initiatives in Kolkata (Pictures)

Through theatre and an unusual exhibition, two youth led initiatives in Kolkata showcased recently that creativity of the next generation is thriving in the city. Reeti Roy reports

Vikrant Dadawala and Safdar Rahman of Kolkata knew that when they finished school-they wanted to do so with a bang. For both Rahman, an ex student of St Xavier’s Collegiate School, and Dadawala, an alumnus of La Martiniere For Boys, the school leaving experience had to be special. The two 18 year olds put their heads together and decided that they would write a play- which finally morphed into Exit.

The second chapter of Magic Wallrush exhibition took place in June this year at the Weaver’s Studio. The first chapter happened earlier when a group of school and college students decided to display their artwork on the busy Sudder Street. This time around though, the students decided that they would display their work indoors. “The idea was to do a street exhibition again but we decided to have the exhibition indoors because there were chances of rain,” says Opashona Ghosh, one of the chief organisers of the event.

These are a couple of instances of recent youth initiatives in Kolkata. The dramatics scenario among the young in the theatre-literate city, however, has a long tradition. Every year, the British Council organises the interschool drama competition which began 27 years ago. “Schools are first selected on the basis of one act original scripts, after which they are given an opportunity to do workshops with theatre professionals based in both India as well as the U.K., “ informs says Samarjit Guha, head of programme, British Council, East India.

Famous names like Victor Banerjee, Ramanjit Kaur, Kunal Padhi, Katy Lai Roy, Gautam and Sohini Haldar are instrumental in honing the children’s talents. These workshops cover acting, direction, technicals and costumes because students are expected to do everything by themselves during the actual staging of their plays.

As for Dadawala and his friend, “The idea for Exit came about one week  before the ISC exam.” Although the duo did not have anything concrete in mind at the time, they knew that they wanted to produce a play that depicted their own lives as closely as possible. From the very outset, it was decided that the play would be about 18 olds waiting for making the transition from school to college. Both Dadawala and Rahman agreed that instead of making the characters larger than life and highly exaggerated (which they had earlier thought they would resort to), they wanted to stick to real people.

The process was far from easy. Once the script was sorted, Aditi Roy -a friend, was roped in to handle the design as well as the publicity for the play. “Since we were targeting the youth and we didn’t have humongous funds to start with, we used Facebook as a publicity tool,” says Roy. Apart from that, the team put up posters in every nook and corner of the city. They also devised a system where guests could call them up and book tickets beforehand. “That really worked in our favour,” recalls Dadawala.

The purpose of the play was not merely to put forward an idea that two school-leaving students had. “Our performance text was the most important thing, but we are aware of the fact that there are many talented youngsters in the city who have no place to showcase their talent,” they say. So they  decided that even though the play would not deviate from the script, it would include art, photography and even a video. Theatre stalwart Sumit Roy of ‘Red Curtain’ has hailed Rahman and Dadawala’s endeavour as “the next generation of theatre”

“The Youth Theatre scene is definitely looking up. Tin Can, the group where most of the performers are  British Council drama products and supported majorly by the Council, has just performed in the National Youth Festival at Edinburgh. Then, there is Theatrician, another talented Youth theatre group,” says Guha.

If Theatrician and Tin Can have been around for some time now, youth initiatives like   The Magic Wallrush are taking the theatre circuit and indeed, what maybe called the “arts” circuit one step further. If anything, they can be called the younger brigade of art enthusiasts.

However, there are  areas that  the young theatre enthusiasts need to pay attention to, says Guha. “Youth Theatre lacks an overall smart package. All the participants want to act and none wants to bring business or marketing skills to the group. So, they lack direction towards fundraising. If some of the members hone their skills in such aspects, youth theatre in Kolkata would definitely come full circle.”

Magic Wallrush started when a group of young students went to Santiniketan together. “At that time, some of us didn’t even know each other. But when it was time to head home, most of us had become friends.  Magic Wallrush happened because a bunch of us wanted to have fun on a mundane Sunday. We decided that it would be more fun to get together and do something rather than staying home and lazing around, “says Arka Alam, a student of Comparative Literature at Jadavpur University, who did a lot of the artwork for the event.

It is ‘their’ street art. “Kolkata  is an amazing place and we get to have exhibitions in unique colourful locations and by doing so, we get an immediate response on how people feel about our art. Also, we explore forgotten sections of the city and celebrate its splendour,” says Ghosh.

The exhibition was  a curious blend of startling photographs, paintings and short films which keeps pushing realism to its limits until it completely disintegrates. The sombre photograph that one sees during the beginning of the exhibition is replaced by bold aggressive brushstrokes by the time one reaches the end of the gallery. Interestingly enough, one painting uses a quote from Albert Camus which says “The worm is in man’s heart”.

The young artists want to change the way people perceive this generation by promoting young art and by continuing to focus on promoting the arts.

“The feedback, the appreciation and the support that we have received because of our work has only inspired us to push ourselves harder and try to do better,” says Alam. Indeed, despite the scorching heat, the exhibition was thronged by visitors.

But, as Ghosh sums it up succinctly, the best thing about the Magic Wallrush is that people not only do things that they enjoy, but also have fun doing so.