MANAVELI PERFORMING
ARTS GROUP TO PRESENT A MULTI-ETHNIC GROUP THEATRE AND DANCE FESTIVAL -
POLYNATION
Polynation is Pollination: Theatre and
Arts from the Margins
 Toronto
is one of the most diverse cities in the world. Yet, this diversity in
arts, theatre and dance is not adequately represented in the Canadian mainstream.
Manaveli Performing Arts Group (MPAG), Canada’s premier Tamil theatre group,
is to hold a theatre and dance festival on April 6, 2003 at the York Woods
Library theatre in collaboration with Montreal’s Teesri Duniya Theatre
. Manaveli hopes this festival will facilitate artistic dialogue among
marginalized communities. This festival is sponsored by Imagintech (Computer
Training & IT Consulting) and Living Furniture (Fine Home Furniture).
The Manaveli Performing Arts
Group aims to carry out artistic performances to stimulate interest in
drama and theatre among the Tamil community and to share our culture, traditions
and heritage with other communities via the performing arts. Since its
inception in 1996, Manaveli has staged thirty six plays through their annual
drama and theatre festivals called ARANGADAL, which have been hailed by
the Tamil literary world as path breaking. Manaveli has also introduced
well-known English and other language playwrights, such as Eugene Ionesco,
Anton Checkov, Samuel Beckett, Jean Genet and Vaclav Havel, to the Tamil
audience.
Founded in 1981, Teesri Duniya
Theatre brings together artists from every culture, colour, language and
heritage. The company produces mainstage productions, community based projects,
a new play development series, and a quarterly magazine - alt.theatre:
cultural diversity and the stage. Teesri Duniya is dedicated to a multicultural/multiracial
vision of Canada, characterized by ethno-sensitivity, cultural progression,
and multi/interculturalism.
Unlike Manaveli’s previous
ten ARANGADAL festivals, POLYNATION will be aimed at various ethno-racial
groups in Toronto. The idea of POLYNATION is to bring together various
theatre and dance groups for a meaningful pollination of arts, ideas and
representations.
POLYNATION will bring
the following productions on stage:
The first performance is Lone
Tree , a Manaveli Production, in which the classical Tamil dance Bharathanatyam
takes a new meaning and mode. A solitary three hundred year old Cedar tree
symbolizes the spirit of nature. The grand tree bears silent witness to
a cruel humanity’s gregarious consumption of earthy resources. The dance
is based on a poem by Cheran, a distinguished face in Tamil literary circles.
‘Lone Tree’ is directed and performed by Malini Pararajasingham, a well
known classical dancer.
The second play is The Perpetual
Cycle , a Manaveli Production, which takes a hard look at the evolution
of the human race. The play has been scripted by renowned Tamil poet Premil
and directed by R. Sivaratnam, who directed the Europe-based theatre group,
Kaalam.
The third one is Pollination
, a multiple role-playing workshop presentation. An ensemble group, who
worked in a workshop with director, actor, playwright and theatre practitioner,
Chuck Mike will present multiple role-playing pieces. Chuck Mike, who instructed
in the Performing Arts at the University of Ife (in Nigeria), was also
a practical disciple of famed writer Wole Soyinka for over two decades.
The fourth performance is
Rites of Passage , episode two of Untold Stories, an ongoing cultural outreach
project by Teesri Duniya Theatre which involves community members--particularly
those from under represented and marginalized groups--working with professional
and emerging artists to collect, dramatize and present short, theatrical
episodes based on untold or little-known stories.
POLYNATION
York Woods Library Theatre
1785 Finch Ave. West (Finch
& Keele)
Toronto
April 06, 2003 at 4:00 p.m.
Tickets cost $ 10:00
For further details, or for
interview requests, please contact:
Vijai Karthigesu
Manaveli Performing Arts
Group
Tel: 416.985.0252
E-mail: vijai@manaveli.org-
¾¸Åø: Manaveli Performing
Arts Group ;info@manaveli.org
|
