Artistes’ ‘DRIFT’ to Dharamsala

Lalit Mohan

The four-day Dharamsala Residential and International Festival for Theatre (DRIFT), that was organised from March 6 to March 9 at McLeodganj, saw the coming together of national and international theatre artistes at Dharamsala. 

Jodi Thiek, an Australian puppeteer, presented her puppet shows and taught local children the art of conceiving a show and making puppets to local children and tourists, who attended her workshop. 

Black and White, a show directed by Nimmy Raphel, was performed by a team of artists from Akhoka theatre group from Manipur. The show was a display of non-verbal or physical theatre. Though many among the audience failed to understand the theme, it was appreciated with a thundering applause. 

Adi Shakti group from Pondicherry also performed during the fest. The group performed a play ‘Legend of ILA’ directed by Anant Dayal from Delhi. 

The local artistes presented shows on Himachali folk tales, apart from a series of three monologues titled ‘Margins’. The festival drew local and international tourists as crowds and most of the shows went houseful. 

Niranjani Iyer, a former faculty at National School of Drama who founded DRIFT in Dharamsala, said she was aspiring to involve the local population of Dharamsala in the art of theatre. She, however, said theatre can only thrive with the support of locals. 

Iyer has founded DRIFT, which is a vibrant community of theatre practitioners from different parts of the country and the world. It aims at bringing various communities of Dharamsala together through the medium of theatre, she said. 

Niranjani moved to Dharamsala in 2012 and started living in Naddi. “I found that unlike most of the other places in India, Dharamsala did not have any indigenous form of theatre. A few fellow artistes including Sanya Jain from Delhi and Gurleen Arora came up with me and founded DRIFT. The organisation took baby steps and now it organises an annual theatre festival besides organising workshops in schools and other places,” she said. 

She said since 2017, DRIFT had conducted workshops in local schools in Dharamsala and McLeodganj, public readings in cafés and restaurants around town on themes such as Exile, Queer writings, Lok Kathayen, Original local writings, Food, Children Writings, Creation Myths and many more. An evening of Kangra Folk Tales including Gaddi tales and songs was held last December at Hotel Dhauladhar as part of the HP government’s Trigarth Festival. 

She said the festival this year brought together artistes from all over and local performances from Dharamsala. We had artistes coming from Delhi and Singapore as well as Adishakti Theatre from Puducherry and Akhoka from Manipur, she said. The artistes held workshops on puppetry, physical theatre, music and movement. “Participants and performers live and work together, helping each other backstage, ushering, ticketing and cooking all details that go into making a festival. This aspect makes DRIFT different from most theatre festivals. DRIFT is ideal for local residents, who want to explore theatre and are looking for a platform to learn and hone skills,” Niranjani Iyer said.