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Colombo International Theatre Festival:
Theatre for Young Audiences
by Anuradha Kodagoda
The Colombo International Theatre Festival will come alive for the
third consecutive year, at the auditorium of the British School in
Colombo from March 28 to April 2.
"This year's the Colombo International Theatre Festival main focus is
Theatre for Young Audiences (TYA). TYA is a subject now very much
popular around the world and there are many experimental works that have
been done around the world under this theme. As a member of ASSITEJ
(International Association of theatre for Children and Young People)
which is an organisation with the main focus of theatre for young
audiences operates in 80 countries around the world, we think it's
important to promote this concept in Sri Lanka in a broader sense,"
talking to the Sunday Observer the official print media partner of the
event, M. Safeer, the Festival Director of the Colombo International
Theatre Festival 2014 said.
"When talk more about the concept of theatre for young audiences, I
think still we have not identified the concept in full. For example in
Germany a theatre production which categorised as years 10 plus, the
themes that they talk about can be quite open minded but the same
production can be categorised as 15 or 18 years age category due to
various social and cultural barriers that we have in an Asian country.
Therefore we try to implement these new concepts to Sri Lankan theatre
and the Colombo International Theatre Festival 2014 is one good attempt
for that exercise," Safeer said.
This year the organisers have dedicated the Colombo International
Theatre Festival for the late Prof. Ediriweera Sarachchandra's birth
centenary commemoration and the festival named as "Prof. Ediriweera
Sarachchandra birth centenary commemoration Colombo International
Theatre Festival 2014".
Across six days, theatre companies from Germany, Nepal, India and
Mexico alongside their Sri Lankan counterparts will present eight
unique, diverse and interactive performances that aim to showcase the
cream of emerging theatre across the globe.
"The festival is consisted of many categories and it has children
productions, youth productions and dance productions which mainly
focused on TYA concept. As we believe Colombo Theatre Festival is quite
a successful event throughout past two years however even though this is
the only international theatre festival Sri Lanka has right now, it's
quite challenging to get the sponsorship to host the festival.
However we are quite positive about the future and we hope the
upcoming event will be a greater success and we invite all the theatre
lovers to join with us and enjoy this rare chance of international
theatre experience," he said.
A forum titled the 'Colombo Theatre Forum' will allow both local and
international directors and artistes, to meet each other and discuss
present theologies, future trends and challenges that concern the
emerging and experimental theatre industry in general.
It is envisaged that following this forum, an action plan would be
finalised on how to address the issues discussed.
Colombo Theatre will be held at the Goethe Institute from March 29 to
31. Participation by invitation only. |
