The Fort – Theatre workshop by Maya Krishna Rao

23 August 2014 | 4:00-6:00pm

Vadehra Art Gallery, D53, Defence Colony

This event is part of FICA Homepage 2014

The Fort is a theatre workshop designed and conducted by actor and educator Maya Krishna Rao. It is designed specifically for teachers of elementary schools who are looking to extend their teaching methodology to look at more creative and collective ways of engaging with their students.  This workshop aims to help teachers plan classroom sessions using the arts to draw the children into a process of collective learning, explore how role-play can help the students engage with the subject, and make learning and teaching both fun and deeply impactful. This workshop is a step towards FICA Learning with Art’s new focus on working with school teachers to integrate art education into everyday teaching. 

Maya Krishna Rao is a Delhi-based actor, director, writer, educator and activist, recognized for her original and innovative productions. Since the late 1970s, she has produced a body of work that has provoked her audiences to delve into social and political issues, even as it has amused and entertained them.

A founder-member of the street theatre group Theatre Union, Shrimati Maya Rao scripted, directed, and performed powerful street plays such as Om Swaha, a critique of dowry, and Dafa No. 180, on the Indian rape law, between 1979 and 1982. In later years, she has produced a succession of compelling single-actor plays such as Ravanama, Are You Home Lady Macbeth?, A Deep Fried Jam, and Heads Are Meant for Walking Into. Her production Quality Street, based on a short story by the Nigerian writer Chimamanda Adichie, received great acclaim.

Rao has received training in Kathakali from Gurus Madhava Pannikar and Sadanam Balakrishnan.
She has studied politics at Jawaharlal Nehru University, Delhi, and theatre arts at Leeds University, UK. She has worked briefly with the Perspectives Theatre Company in Nottingham, UK, designing programmes of community interest, and with the Leeds Playhouse Theatre-in-Education Company creating theatre programmes for schools. At home, too, she has been much involved with children’s theatre, conceiving, scripting, and directing a number of plays for the NSD’s TIE Company as well as conducting school teacher workshops. She was Associate Professor at NSD from 1985 to 1990, and then visiting faculty at the School for many years.  A member of NCERT's National Curriculum Framework Committee, she has drafted a drama syllabus for Classes I to XII. She has also formulated the Drama syllabus for B.El.Ed (Bachelor in Elementary Education), Delhi University, 2008.

Rao received the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for her contribution to Indian theatre as an actor in 2010.

Registrations Open for the workshop - write to us with your CV and contact details to register.