Atelier’s ACT Fest aka Atelier’s Campus Theatre Festival is back with its 9th season, starting on February 21st and continuing till the 28th. Being the world’s largest Youth Theatre fiesta, it has witnessed 200 performances in 7 seasons. The previous season hosted the best of vernacular theatre along with revived forms like dastangoi and red nose clowning.
It is now inviting entries from college theatre groups engaged in street theatre, stage performances and alternate performances across Delhi NCR. This festival will involve screening levels which includes the Line reading session, followed by the final performance. The line reading session will be an audition round where an expert panel will judge the participating teams on the basis of their script, design, representation, discussions etc. Each team will be given half an hour to showcase their respective performance.
When asked about his expectation from the 9th season, The festival curator, Kuljeet Singh, who’s currently a professer of SGTB Khalsa College said, ” As this festival has become so coveted over time, I personally look forward to witness some refine and well rehearsed performances both during the rehearsal and finale.” He expressed that last time few performers did exceptionally well during the audition round but when it came to presenting it in the final round, they weren’t able to hit the mark. This time, more concrete parameters have been introduced to ensure a successful outcome.
Kuljeet Singh is a theatre and film person with a popular Hero Motrocorp commercialand a cameo in “Rockstar”. He’s best known for his film “Margarita With A Straw”. Shefali Vyas, former president of ‘Kshitij’, the street play society of Gargi college described her experience with the previous season of Atelier Fest as ‘fabulous and enlightening’. She said that the best part about the festival is that it provides a first hand theatre experience and takes it where it is actually needed.
Unlike College fests, the artists here get to perform on streets and other locations. Adding that the prize money kills the main objective of performing such arts, she said that this experience helps in keeping the real theatre spirit alive.
Promising a total outreach of around 3,50,000, the 7 day theatre fiesta (February 21-28, 2016) will showcase over 40 performances, directly involving 20,000 people. The fiesta will take place at Akshara, LTG Auditorium; India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road & University of Delhi colleges.
Lovleen Kaur
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