Kerala - Thrissur   

A stage to showcase their latent talents

— Photo: K.K. Najeeb

MESMERISING SHOW: Inmates of Government Children's Home staging ‘Kuzhaluthukar' at K.T. Mohammed Memorial Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Hall in Thrissur on Wednesday.

Thrissur: Like the pied piper of Hamelin, they came and mesmerised the audience with their performance. The inmates of the Government Children's Home, Ramavarmapuram, staged ‘Kuzhaluthukar', a theatre performance, at the K.T. Mohammed Memorial Sangeetha Nataka Akademi Hall, here, on Wednesday.

About 25 children of the home participated in the performance, the theatre adaptation of the famous folktale ‘The Pied Piper'. It was staged to mark the valedictory of a month-long summer theatre camp ‘Venalkkootam'.

The programme, conducted with financial assistance from the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), aimed at encouraging latent creative skills in the inmates of the children's home. Coming from hard situations in life, the children have been denied the care and support of a family.

K.V. Ganesh, theatre artist and trainer, who directed the play said that the major challenge faced by him was to win the confidence of the children and to make them ready to be trained. “They didn't know the spirit of togetherness and theatre is essentially a teamwork.”

Another hurdle was language. For many, who belonged to different States and spoke different languages, delivering dialogues in Malayalam was a tough task, he said.

“The choreography was designed by incorporating common play methods and minimum movement pattern to suit children. Clarity of language and pronunciation, however, were limitations,” he said. R. Roshini, the probation officer of the home, noted that such camps helped in bringing about a discipline and sharing mentality among children. “It boosts their morale,” she said.

A week-long film festival, folksong training and painting camps will also be part of Venalkootam.

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