The Hindu : Tamil Nadu / Chennai News : Talent hunt in tsunami-hit districts

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Thursday, Jun 16, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu - Chennai

Talent hunt in tsunami-hit districts

Dhanya Parthasarathy

RARING TO GO: Members of the cultural troupes at a workshop in Chennai on Wednesday. — Photo: S.R. Raghunathan

CHENNAI: The troupe leaders are in their sixties and most of the artistes are middle-aged. Yet, they believe they still have it in them to make children sit up and take notice.

One hundred theatre artistes from 10 drama troupes will spend the next month touring three tsunami-affected districts as part of a joint project of the UNICEF and the Ministry of Information and Broadcasting. And children will be their special audience.

According to the Regional Deputy Director of the Ministry, Vijayaraghavan, this is a "first-time experiment" to find talented singers, dancers and actors among the tsunami-affected children.

Communicating through song

At an orientation workshop on Wednesday, the troupes were briefed on sanitation and hygiene and given tapes with songs on literacy, pulse polio and malaria to incorporate in their performances.

"Every troupe will spend three days in a shelter. We are covering 25 shelters each in Cuddalore and Kanyakumari and 50 in Nagapattinam," says Dr. Vijayaraghavan.

Manjai V. Somu, a troupe leader going to visit Cuddalore in a couple of days, is convinced that the children will love what he has on offer — "Mickey Mouse and Peacock Dance," he says.

S.P. Meena, 65, a troupe leader from Madurai, has evolved a storyline that will keep the children in splits for two hours, she says.

"If the children are talented, we will make them act along with us on the last day. We have been told to spend the day identifying and training talented children and in the evenings we will put up shows."

Good family, bad family

Chennai-based Kudanthai Chandran says his play is about a `good family' that is hygienic, cleans the house and boils water and a `bad family', which does none of the above and falls ill.

"I'll then take a voice vote from the children on which is better. That way the children will learn and educate their families." The Government hopes to compile a list of talented children and hold district level competitions and shows in the future, said Dr. Vijayaraghavan. Almost all the participating theatre artistes are full-time professionals with years of experience in street theatre. "The fishing community does not respect officials and free aid. Quite often you will see that they take things for granted. But they respect artistes like us. We make them happy," says Somu.

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