Journalism of Courage
Around 55 visually impaired girls attended a theatre workshop to combat stage fear and develop communication skills
Whether the instructions given were in the order of 1,2,3,4,5 or 3,1,4,2,5 they grasped quickly and responded in time,without a single mistake. The said instructions wherein 1 was for walk,2 for dance,3 for sit,4 for sleep and 5 to continue your last activity – were meant for visually impaired girls attending theatre workshop organised in the city. Comprehending each and every detail of theatrics like professional actors be it voice modulation or improvisation they proved that learning has no barriers.
Conducted by the city-based theatre group-Swatantra Theatre,the acting workshop was attended by 55 visually impaired girls. While 44 students were from National Federation of Blind Maharashtra Jagriti School,10 were from a vocational training institute in Aurangabad and one was from Thane. It was organised at the Jagriti School in Alandi from April 26 to April 29. Besides Pune,some of the participants were from places like Aurangabad,Thane and Solapur. We were amazed and impressed to see the efforts put in by them. After the first session itself,they absorbed the elements of drama better than normal participants do. Some of them are very sharp and acting comes very naturally to them, says Abhijeet Choudhary who conducted the workshop alongwith Dhanashree Heblikar.
Twelve-year-old,Nupur Milind Joshi,of Thane,who attended the workshop says that earlier she used to just mouth dialogues in front of her friends,but now she knows how to act too. Similarly 14-year-old Reshma More,who is fond of drama and acting,feels that activities like voice projection and story making have been very helpful.
This is the first time the girls have participated in such a workshop. It has helped them to tackle their stage fright in an easier way. As a result factors like communication skills,facing the crowd,confidence level are taken care of indirectly and the overall personality of the child is developed too, says Sakina Bedi,a spokesperson of National Federation of Blind Maharashtra Jagriti School.
The module of the theatre workshop included activities such as introduction of drama,theatrical games,voice projection,story making,and improvisation in which they were asked to act on a topic that was selected on the spot. For their final act,the girls even wrote a play titled Save Earth portraying the hazards of pollution,which they performed on the concluding day of the workshop. The students were very spontaneous and came up with various creative and unique ideas which they incorporated in the script of the play, says Choudhary.
