Day two at Medina – the annual theatre festival of Hindu College witnessed the street play competition – Itehaad-e-Ibtida on 7th March. After day one of Qissa-e-Ibtida (stage play competition), Dastan goi (Urdu storytelling) and Filmy Chakkar (Bollywood Quiz), day two featured only the nine hour long street play competition.
Continuing the tradition of bringing something new and unique for street theatre artists, Medina is not about the usual annual productions being performed by various teams. All the artists are given different challenges each year – these range from performing the production of other teams participating, to performing a 2 year old production of your own society with a preparation time of few hours. This year all the teams were shuffled, each time having members of 5 other teams divided according to the year of their study and music art portrayed in the performances. Through this process, 10 teams were formed and they were given 3 hours preparation time to make a new play on different social topics given to each team through a chit system. The topics given were related to the topics on which plays in the university have been happening recently.
Mr. Sahil Yadav, alumni of Ibtida and presently in Jawaharlal Nehru University judged the event. He mentioned, “Medina is different because it is not a usual competition. Artists come out of their comfort zone. They perform with people whom they don’t know, brainstorm and form a play in few hours.”
Participating teams included SGTB Khalsa College, Hansraj College, Jesus and Mary College, PGDAV College, Ramanujan College, Shri Ram College of Commerce, Shaheed Sukhdev College of Business Studies, Miranda House, Shivaji and Guru Teg Bahadur Institute of Technology.
After 3 hours of preparation, all the teams presented their plays. The results were as follows:
1st position:
Team – final year students of Ramanujan College, second year students of SGTB Khalsa and first year students of GTBIT with musicians from Jesus and Mary College. They performed a play on Gender Inequality.
2nd position:
Team – final year students from College of Business Studies and Hansraj College, second year students from shivaji and PGDAV freshers with musicians from Shri Ram College of Commerce. “Old Age is…” is the play they presented on old age challenges and problems.
Retiring Actor Award: Prabhjot Singh, SGTB Khalsa College
Newcomer Award: Nikita Kumar, Miranda House
Rohit Kumar of India’s Got Talent fame, made a sand painting depicting various elements of street theatre. This was followed by the feedback session and small celebration organised by Ibtida. The cake cutting was followed by a DJ where students themselves also sang songs from Hindi cinema. All the participants, same as the judge really liked the concept.
A member of dramatics society of Shri Ram College Of Commerce said, “Itehaad-e-Ibtida is the best and the most creative theatre festival of Delhi University. We wait for Medina 2015. Thank you for keeping the true spirit of theatre alive in the circuit.”
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