International Theatre Festival of Kerala 2017: Drama to hit streets

Towering figures in formidable costumes stride down the street. Massive red wings sprout from their shoulders and their painted faces grimace as they make their way through the crowds.  A regal man in white stands proud and smiling in the centre of the square. Does he sense the terrifying giant in black coming up behind him, arm raised to kill? Welcome to the International Theatre Festival of Kerala - all over Thrissur town.  From the 20th to the 28th of February, this year's edition spills out of the Kerala Sangeetha Nataka Akademi campus and out into the streets, capturing public space and the public's imagination. With a focus on street performance, the festival program stretches the stage beyond the proscenium to multiple venues in unlikely places. 16 international companies and 15 Indian ones bring their vibrant best to the audiences at 14 ephemeral performance spaces, from Town Hall to swimming pool.

The range of theatre on display is dazzling and diverse. Master puppeteers from France, les Antliaclastes, are back again this year to convert the unique SIM Garage into a fantastical, sometimes macabre universe with 'Acting Bug'. The wild and verdant swathes within the School of Drama premises transform into battlegrounds in 'The Misty Mountains of Mahabharata'.  Nehru Park welcomes the young and the young at heart to Iran's 'Sara'. A visit to the Sports Club swimming pool becomes the site of, but naturally, a 'Pool Play'!

Theatre companies from Bulgaria, Serbia, Spain and Lithuania, Delhi, Pune, Kozhikode, Kochi and a host of other places will all converge at a festival that is becoming the unmissable highlight of the cultural calendar. Performances are not all that the Festival offers. Eminent writers, researchers, professors and directors will share ideas and opinions across panels at the Theatre Colloquium and the Dramaturgy Conclave. Subjects range from Art in times of Extreme Nationalism to Digital Interfaces in Theatre. These events will be held at the Kerala Sahitya Akademi.A lecture series at the School of Drama will have speakers such as Erin Mee and Aubrey Mellor presenting papers on Art and Digital Media, Pedagogy and Contemporary Theatre. An open forum offers a platform for all; to discuss plays, meet the artists, and voice their point of view.

Four international collaborative projects are set out to prove that art is universal and that human response to the world around us crosses all borders. Artists from India encounter theatre makers from Poland, Spain, Chile and France, to find a common human language in which to express themselves. Actors and activists, musicians and acrobats have been spending time together in various workshops and residencies. Here they have devised new work, weaving their differences together into colourful fabric that they will use to drape the town into collective experience.

The Hunger Project questions our response to the failure of societies and nations to improve the human condition. The Migrar workshop invites you to walk into a city and rediscover it with a migrant's eyes. Sari Rosa is a flamboyant celebration, albeit a thoughtful one; and the strings project conjures up music and magic under the shade of a sprawling tree. All outdoor performances are free and open to the public. The shows in indoor spaces are ticketed nominally at Rs 30 and these tickets will be available online for advance booking and at the box office on the days of the shows - details of which are on the festival website.

ITFoK 2017 promises to inspire substantive and thought-provoking dialogue, without losing the essential characteristic of theatre - to entertain. So prepare to immerse yourself in the world of make believe. Come to the Kavalam Aranag; the Palace Grounds that metamorphose into stage and setting from the 20th of February.  Journey with theatre across nine days and 33 shows also offers an opportunity for a rediscovery of Thrissur Town. Return to the Kavalam Arang on the 28th to watch the festival culminate in a larger than life closing performance from Italy, signing off with spectacular finish.

Performances to watch out:

The Strings Theatre Company is an artists’ collective from Germany, Finland and France that is famous for their onsite creation of performance in residency. Collaborating with three Indian artists – actor, singer and acrobat – for ten days, they will present a non verbal outdoor piece during the festival.

Art Junction Poland and Theatreconnekt Thrissur come together to create ‘Not our Business’, an intercultural street theatre project commissioned and coproduced by the International Theatre Festival of Kerala. Drawing from the writings of social scientists, agro-ecologists and investigative journalists such as Martin Caparros, Andrew Mwenda, Amartya Sen, P Sainath and Yogendra Yadav, a small group of actors and activists is making their own physical and cognitive explorations into questions of social and human conditions. They will apply the improvisational and devising skills employed during their residency, journeying from idea to discussion, improvisation to narrative and then to performance.

Kamchatka, a cutting edge outdoor theatre company from Spain, walks into a street with their suitcases and encounters it and the world it is in. Their performances are those of rediscovery – of a street, a city, a country. This time, they will train 30 Indian workshop participants to join them in their workshop process of devising and then to perform the resulting work on the streets of Thrissur town.

La Patriotrioco from Chile will be in Thrissur to create work that is part spectacle, part political statement and reflects the nature of the politically charged environs in which we live. They too will be recruiting from among applicants from the general public to spend time with in a workshop process which will lead to the creation of the final performance piece in the style of flamboyant spectacle.