Premium

Plays and Time

Atul Satya Koushik, Director For most of the year, theatre was bustling with new ideas, faces and productions. The ripple effect of November 8, when demonetisation was announced, was quickly felt in theatre. Although, online bookings have become the norm, I find that people have lost interest in watching plays. As the year ends, our […]

theatre, play, theatre artist, demonetisation, theatre demonetisation, demonetisation effect, indian express talk, entertainment

Atul Satya Koushik,Director

Atul Satya Koushik, Director

For most of the year, theatre was bustling with new ideas, faces and productions. The ripple effect of November 8, when demonetisation was announced, was quickly felt in theatre. Although, online bookings have become the norm, I find that people have lost interest in watching plays. As the year ends, our biggest worry is that the effects of the financial crisis will last another three or four months.

Amitesh Grover, Performance Maker

The deepest impact on art this year has been a stark and perhaps irreversible change in our urban spaces. Our streets, work environments, social media, even our dinner tables now display a frightening degree of polarisation, intolerance, and aggressive anxieties. My friends in the arts all around the world have felt this change. What we have witnessed this year is a crisis in ‘listening’ and ‘seeing’, a crisis of conversation itself. This year has made it evident that theatre and performance cannot continue to be confined to its conventional spaces — auditoriums, galleries, exhibitions — but instead need to be placed amidst the public, in public spaces. We need to negotiate with these concerns, and I am developing my next performance art project around it.

Neelam Mansingh Chowdhry

Theatre director and actor

Thousands of artistes, arts companies and academies that have shaped the cultural landscape of our country are seeing their work come to a standstill. The salary grant from the Ministry of Culture that we depended on is being reviewed. We met the minister two months ago but nothing seems to be moving. We are unable to give salaries to our artistes or actors or create new productions.