DOGRA HERALD BUREAU
JAMMU, Jan 9
Braving extremely chilly weather, Jammu children are exploring altogether a new world of creativity and innovation at Natrang’s winter theatre workshop for children. Conceptualized and devised by Padamshree Balwant Thakur, a new methodology of children theatre is being implemented in an intense theatre workshop which is going on these days at Natrang Studio Theatre in Jammu. Natrang the premier cultural institution of Jammu devotes the entire winter, offering a unique opportunity for children aimed at exploring their immense inner abilities of children. While majority prefer to utilize winter vacation in holidaying, few parents finding this as an ultimate occasion, bring their children to Natrang which has pioneered in children theatre and have given platform to thousands of children and have transformed and groomed their personalities. In Natrang’s Winter Theatre workshop-2023 children are working on various aspects of the art of story telling and play-making. This Natrang’s new approach of working with children is yielding huge visible results as the participating children are demonstrating endless amount of confidence in public speaking and sharing of new thoughts. Away from their routine class rooms and usual school curriculum, they have found a new environment filled with highly enterprising, aspiring/inspiring creative and innovative ideas. They have found a space where they are being encouraged to express their thoughts using dramatics as an effective tool to connect with the world around. Every year Natrang organises winter, Spring and Summer workshops for children at its studio theatre where through creative games, improvisations, and exercises they explore their immense inborn inner abilities. Theatre in the developed world is used as an important tool in personality development and amazingly helps in infusing of confidence. Stage is considered as a magic space where a child transforms him/herself into a highly confident personality. Natrang is doing regular Children Theatre in the Jammu for the last 34 years, it has trained, inspired and motivated thousands of children till now and most of them have excelled brilliantly in various fields be it acting, direction, media, management, civil services, medicine, engineering, social work etc. It clearly speaks that no matter, what you want to become in life, the confidence, spontaneity, self-exploration, creativity and discipline you imbibe because of theatre training, works as a guiding light and strong motivational force for you to succeed and excel in every sphere of life. The training module of Natrang’s Children theatre has been exclusively devised by Padmashree Balwant Thakur himself, who has taken the children theatre of Jammu to the entire length and breadth of the country and outside to many nations. His plays like Mere Hisse Ki Dhoop Kahan Hai and Aap Hamare Hain Kaun are being considered as one of the most celebrated and longest living plays by children in India. Children have immense possibilities and abilities to perform but they are required to be explored through such highly innovative experiments of theatre and arts in education. They are required to be infused self confidence and equipped with new tools of communication, organizing self, focusing targets and the art of public speaking and in this area, these Theatre Workshops plays a major role. In winter Theatre workshop-2024 a play by Balwant Thakur is also being devised under the direction of Neeraj Kant. The workshop is being assisted by Kanan Kaur and coordinated by Mohd. Yaseen. Sumeet Sharma is the visiting faculty of the workshop. The children who extremely lucky to be a part of this unique initiative are.
The lucky children who are a part of this winter workshop are Aarjav Jain, Aarya Mahajan, Adeesha Singh, Advik Sharma, Anaadi Abrol, Araiya Shan, Daivik Gupta, Deshna Jain, Mehak Chib, Eva Saini, Evaana Sawhney, Hriday Vashishth, Jayaditya Singh, Niddha Mahajan, Nitaara Sawhney, Noor Abrol, Priyal Ashok Gupta, Ruhaan Chandan, Samrat Sharma, Shranya Jandial, Shriyan Jandial and Trivid Mahajan.
