TFA Theatre Workshop

Toto Funds the Arts invites you to a one-day theatre workshop to be conducted by Shekhar Seshadri. Based on Augusto Boal's techniques, the workshop will specifically focus on his "Joker System" and culminate in a performance piece for an invited audience.

Shekhar will chose a broad theme for the workshop around which, through the day, there will be scene work, movement, dialogue and image work. As the workshop proceeds, the performance piece will be constucted and linkages established. The "Joker System" itself is based on developing new texts or converting extant texts into performances that follow a series of seven steps: Dedication, Explanation, Scene, Episode, Interview, Commentary, Exhortation.

The workshop attendees need not have any formal theatre or dance experience. The emphasis is more on process than outcome. The final performance is only a bonus.

Date: Sunday October 3

Venue: Centre for Film and Drama, 5th Floor, Sona Towers, Cunningham Road

Fee: Rs 1,400 (includes lunch, tea and dinner)

Maximum number of participants: 25


Send your cheques made out to Toto Funds the Arts, by ordinary post or courier, to Toto Funds the Arts, H-301 Adarsh Gardens, 47th Cross, 8th Block, Jayanagar, Bangalore 560082.

January reading pix

Reading: January 2009

The readers this month are:

Trina Nilina Banerjee & Mariam Karim-Ahlawat

Venue: Crossword Bookstore, ACR Towers,
Ground Floor, 32 Residency Road, Bangalore - 1

Date and time: Thursday, 8 January 2009 at 6.30 pm

Trina Nilina Banerjee is 27 years old. She is a Kolkata -based writer, actor and director. Her poems have been published in, among others, the Quarterly Literary Review Singapore and The Little Magazine. Her first volume of poetry, Inside a Blue Corridor (Writers Workshop) came out in 2001. Her experimental prose writings and short stories have appeared in the literary supplement of The Statesman. An experienced theatre performer, she has also directed several plays. In 2005, Trina’s lead role in Nisshabd (directed by Jahar Kanungo) won her the Best Actress Award at the 7th Osian Film Festival in Delhi. In 2007, Chinese Whispers, a film by Raka Dutta, in which Trina plays a rag-picker, was selected as the only official Indian entry to the Cannes Film Festival. In 2008, she acted in national-award winning director Suman Mukhopadhyay’s film Chaturanga (based on the Tagore novel), where her performance as the silent and oppressed Nanibala was much appreciated by film critics and audiences alike.

Mariam Karim-Ahlawat was educated at the JNU, New Delhi and the Sorbonne, Paris, where she studied French Literature and Pedagogy. Mariam writes fiction for both children and adults. Her first children’s book, Tales Old and New, was published by Harper Collins in 1994. In 2007, Tulika Books published her Putul and the Dolphins in six Indian languages and The King and the Kiang in eight languages. Gulla and the Hangul is scheduled to appear shortly. In 2003, her novel, My Little Boat, published by Penguin India, was nominated for the International IMPAC Award and the Hutch Crossword Award. Over the years, Mariam’s short stories and reviews have appeared in various magazines and journals, most recently in the South Asia Review, USA, and the PEN Anthology of Women Writers, Our Voice, Volume III. Mariam also writes about education and society in a regular column called ‘Guruspeak’ for The Times of India Pluses (north India),

See you there!

Results? Soon, very soon

Toto Funds the Arts will announce the winners of the Toto Awards 2009 for music, photography and creative writing on January 12 at a public function. 

Venue: Alliance Française de Bangalore, Thimmaiah Road, Vasanth Nagar, Bangalore 

Date: 12 January 2009 

Time: 7.30 pm 

The renowned photo-journalist T. S. Satyan will be the Chief Guest. The award winners will present their work at the function. Applicants wishing to know the results should check this blog on or after 16 January, when all the information will be available.

TFA and rafiki do Woyzeck

(Images by Shilo)

Toto Funds the Arts and rafiki are collaborating to produce Georg Büchner's most acclaimed play, Woyzeck.

About the production
Adapted and directed by Anmol Vellani
Ranga Shankara,Bangalore
Saturday 13 September (7:30 pm)
Sunday 14 September(3:30 pm and 7:30 pm)

About the play
Büchner's Woyzeck is one the most celebrated plays in the German theatre repertory and has aroused much curiosity and fascination since it was first written in the 1830s. At one level, the play is a gripping story of love, betrayal and madness, a journey into the dark heart of human jealousy. At another, it is a nuanced exploration of the dehumanizing effects of a repressive system and poverty, and a scathing statement on hypocrisy and moral boundaries.



Woyzeck is the first play in Western dramatic literature to politicize tragedy and feature a commoner as a tragic figure. Franz Woyzeck is a peasant-soldier whose fate is sealed as much by his own actions as by the forces of oppression in 19th century Prussian society. The play explores lust, infidelity, brutality, depravity and murder with a radical vision and compact intensity unequalled in the history of drama.

A new script has been specially created for this production. The script underscores Woyzeck's lack of voice and agency, his helplessness and despair, and his gradual disintegration as he is bullied and tormented by his superiors, subjected to bizarre medical experiments by the army doctor, and betrayed by his beautiful and vivacious mistress.

The strong cast includes Anish Victor, Ashish Sen, Sachin Gurjale, Sunitha M R, Shiva Pathak, Abhijeet Shetty, Ashish D’Abreo, Sanjay Iyer, V. Ashok Kumar and Itisha Peerbhoy.

rafiki is a Bengaluru-based theatre group that has been active since 1996 and has a strong focus on children and the young. The group works to celebrate, professionalize and explore theatre for the transformation of self and society.

The production is being supported by the Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan (GI-MMB), Bangalore.