Modality | Ranghbhumi: A Happy

About Rangbhumi's Work

Our work takes us to classrooms in schools and colleges, training rooms in corporations, and open learning spaces to engage with audiences of all ages and socio-cultural-economic-gender spaces.

As an organization, we believe passionately in the power of art forms and the wondrous ability they carry for a personal transformation thereby leading to a community and societal shift in the humanism of everyday living.

Our vision is to take these forms of art based facilitation to workspaces, open learning spaces, classes and training rooms, thereby creating a culture of expression, acceptance and a sense of allowance amongst people.

What is Arts-Based Learning?

Arts-based training can be defined as human development training, delivered through various arts disciplines to develop trust, find shared values, shift perceptions, combine right-brain imagination with left-brain logic and analysis to increase the capacity for breakthrough ideas and insights.

Arts-based learning is an interdisciplinary approach to learning, using arts as a pathway to explore areas such as empathy, acceptance, inclusiveness, compassion, trust, voicing your opinions, dealing with oppression, leadership, communication, team building & dynamics in team bonding, gender inclusiveness, being self-managed individuals and change-agents.

The goal of arts-based learning is not to teach people to be artists, but to create immersive learning experiences using artistic processes to help people gain new insights and perspectives about everyday challenges.

What is Applied Theatre?

Applied Theatre is as an umbrella term, embracing a wide range of theatre practices

that share an intentionality to provoke or shape social change, including: theatre-in-

education, theatre for development, youth theatre, disability theatre, museum theatre, reminiscence theatre and prison theatre.

Applied Theatre builds self esteem, builds confidence, manages anger, heals socio-psychological wounds, creates new approaches to learning, promotes participatory community development and / or work in the aftermath of trauma.

-Thompson and Schechner 2004

Why Applied Theatre?

Through Applied Theatre arts we can ask the deeper questions that lead to the emotional truth about a situation. This gives rise to the discovery and inquiry model that leads to growth of self.

Applied Theatre training programs can be used to:

Foster creative thinking
Creates ability of expressiveness
Simulates emotional quotient
Strengthen people skills in critical areas such as communication, collaboration, conflict resolution.
community building
To be responsible and accountable in their everyday roles and tasks

This is done through attunement and embodiment of self with their surroundings. The outcome of this is that employees are empowered to take actions; they start working towards collaboration than competition, towards self-expression than taking orders and become accountable and take ownership of the task assigned to them.

Applied Theatre Modalities:

Theatre-in-Education (Drama Curriculum)
Drama for Learning and Reflection
Theatre of the Oppressed
Creative Movement
Psychodrama
Playback Theatre
Performance Art
Creative Drama
GRIPS Theatre
Image Management
Participatory Research Theatre Program

The Pathway That Applied Theatre Follows is:

Understanding
Acknowledgement
Acceptance
Evolution
Review

This creates identification of self, open ground for exploration, self-definition, empowerment, enlightenment, creates possibilities and transforms individuals.

Drama Based Learning Facilitation

We believe in the power of improvisations, simulations, experiencing; leading to ‘metacognitive abilities’, and participant’s capacity to apply newly acquired skills to real-life situations. Interactive Drama is a powerful mode that can draw participants into an experience of engaging and learning the complexities of real-life scenarios in a training environment.

The Theatre of the Oppressed (TO)

TO is a set of theatre games and exercises, created by the Brazilian theatre director Augusto Boal, that facilitates a process of reflective dialogue within ourselves and with the communities in which we live and work. But TO is, first and foremost, theatre. And once upon a time, theatre belonged to all, not to a special few, called actors. The ability to express ourselves with our bodies is innate to all of us. Theatre of the Oppressed enables us to reclaim this inherent ability.

Image Theatre:

In Image Theatre, still images are used to explore abstract concepts such as relationships and emotions, as well as realistic situations. Participants rapidly sculpt their own or each other's bodies to express attitudes and emotions. These images are then placed together and ‘dynamized’ or brought to life. The method is often used to explore internal or external oppression, unconscious thoughts and feelings.

Image Theatre consists of physical representation of thoughts and ideas through the expression of the body, an individual’s most fundamental artistic tool. In Image, participants explore issues using nonverbal expression and sculpting their own and other participants’ bodies into static physical images that can depict anything concrete or abstract, such as a feeling, issue, or moment. Spectators are asked to observe these images and reflect on what they witness.

Boal believed it necessary to practice the separation of objective and subjective analysis. When viewing images participants are encouraged to be keen to understand the difference between what one sees and what one assumes based on how one processes what one sees. This is to disrupt the automatic thought processes of inference and to gain

a stronger understanding of the way images can be interpreted. The key is to use the body to develop new ways to communicate and to explore the universality of physical language. By removing words and by using the body; Image is an art form that is highly accessible and can be practiced by a wide population.

Image Theatre can help bring people together, in a common space, to creatively, nonverbally, and dialogically express and develop their perceptions of their world, power structures, and oppressions. Through Image Theatre it is possible to communicate beyond the confines of language, separate out objective and subjective thinking and begin to develop a language of representation. In this, Image is often used as a method of developing scenes to be used in Forum and other TO expressions.

Forum Theatre

Forum Theatre is an interactive form of theatre, usually performed by a small group of people to enable a community to explore multiple solutions to a problem using their collective experience and wisdom.

A Forum play presents a problem, not a solution. It does not preach. It does not judge. It invites spectators to participate in the performance - not through suggestions, advice or discussion, but by replacing one of the characters in the play, and 'acting' in his/her place- that is, by becoming spect-actors.

Spectators identify with or understand the character and the problem, and have a strategy to 'act out'- they are not 'acting' in the sense of 'performing', but simply 'taking action' as they do in real life. Forum is also an opportunity for people to try out strategies that they may not get an opportunity to put into practice in real life- thus it serves as a rehearsal, and with none of the risks of real life action- it's all happening in a play! And yet, it is all so real.

Students perform Forum Theatre on issues according to them. For example; heavy bags, environmental issues, peer pressure, bullying, teacher student relationship and may more.

Creative Movement

Founded on the principle that there is a relationship between motion and emotion, this helps people to experience the possibility of becoming more securely balanced yet increasingly spontaneous and adaptable. Creative Movement is the therapeutic use of movement to further the emotional, cognitive, physical and social integration of an individual. There is the psychotherapeutic use of movement and dance to support intellectual, emotional, and motor functions of the body.

Psychodrama

This is an action method in which clients use spontaneous dramatization, role-playing and dramatic self-presentation to investigate and gain insight into their lives. Developed by Jacob L. Moreno, M.D. (1889–1974) psychodrama includes elements of Theatre, often conducted on a stage, or a space that serves as a stage area, where props can be used.

Playback Theatre

Playback Theatre is an original form of improvisational theatre in which audience or group members tell stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot. The Playback 'form' as developed by Jonathan Fox and Jo Salas utilizes component theatrical forms or pieces, developed from its sources in improvisational theatre, storytelling, and psychodrama. In a Playback Theatre event, someone in the audience tells a moment or story from their life and then all those present watch the enactment by the actors, as the story ‘comes to life’ with artistic shape and nuance.

Students get trained on various methods of Playback Theatre and perform for an audience / storytellers.

Theatre-in-Education

Theatre-in-Education is a process that uses interactive theatre/drama practices to help aid the educational process.

The ground-breaking Theatre-in-Education (TiE) movement was first pioneered by the Belgrade Theatre in 1965, as a way to use theatre and drama to create a range of learning opportunities for young people. They delivered a free TiE service to schools across Coventry between 1965 and 1996. The Theatre-in Education movement soon spread to theatres across the UK. Then to broader settings across the globe. Inspiring a wide range of interactive theatre with children and young people. Encouraging and empowering them to investigate challenging situations for themselves.

Theatre speaks in a language that children understand and relish: movement, mime, dance, poetry, song, costumes, and make-up. It is vital and dynamic, transacted by doing tasks and having experiences, felt experiences that engage children physically, cognitively and emotionally.

Theatre-in-Education is a hybrid with its roots in theatre and in education. It is utilized as a learning method in the curriculum or for exploring aspects of human experience and relationships. The success of TIE lies in the flexible and open arrangement of theatrical and educational elements. The communication and feedback between actors and spectators is established. Discussions, where all the actors, teachers and spect-actors participate are important moments of these events, because here they have the opportunity to share their feelings, impressions, opinions.

Features of TIE :

Through Theatre-in-Education, educators can break from the silent and dominating approach and see education as taking place through heart, mind, body and extension of the imagination.

Through Theatre-in-Education we can teach children various aspects of their curriculum. For example, episodes from History, Science, Hindi, English and subjects of current concerns which are not part of the school’s official curriculum, such as; peer pressure, gender discrimination and complexities of their life.

Theatre-in-Education works for specific objectives emphasizing on the devising of existing material for children and their participation. The participation of the children is a major aspect of the whole process.

Theatre-in-Education works with the existing material of children’s life. This process helps them to deal or solve those issues and situations

Applied Drama in Classrooms - Teacher Training Sessions

The Applied Theatre based session for the Facilitators of Kotak Education Foundation was created to develop storytelling skills and interactive mode of communication. Facilitating a space for deeper listening to the stories of success /celebrations from the parents that the facilitators listen to, establish a deeper empathic dialogue defined as “dialectic” that can be observed in the relationship between the parents, students and the facilitators.