MEMORANDUM OF ARTEN Constituted on 3rd August 2009

1. Name of the Association : ARTEN [ Asia Regional Theatre and Education Network ]
2. Definition of the name:

• Asia – One of the continent of the world having Pacific Ocean in the east, Indian Ocean in the south, North Antartica in the north and Europe in the west.
• Regional – meaning not fully representing the continent geographically but have vision to link countries nearer to each other from economy or cultural or social point of view.
• Theatre – (members) dealing with Theatre Art as a specific action.
• and Education – Include members dealing with social education, political education or education including curriculum or classroom affairs and process drama methods for humanitarian building aspects.
• Network – the aim is to build relationship and to go for some enrichment exercises and advocating the ideas.

3. Address of the Association :

c/o NATYA CHETANA, N-3/432, Nayapally Lottery Plot Area,

Bhubaneswar, Orissa, India – 751015

and natyaindia@gmail.com

4. Contact Persons :

Subodh Patnaik : General Secretary

5. Mission of the Association :

• To learn the concept and practicalities of connecting ‘theatre’ and ‘educational institutions’ establishing theatre as a helpful medium for life and studies.
• To project and make others learn in international sphere about concept of ‘theatre for social education’, which is oldest in the world.

6. Activities of the Association :

1. To organize exchanges among the association members and also invite interactions with international resource organizations, institutions, universities and similar associations.
2. To hold a Regional Congress in Asia once in 2 years having academic and performing sessions on different initiatives of the Asian region.
3. To build networking among serious and innovative organizations of the region.
4. To represent at different international events with regard to theatre and education.
5. To have collaboration productions between countries or among members or among different concepts or among two experts etc..
6. To undertake fundraising assignments such as – Evaluation, Technical Directions, Training, Research etc..
7. To facilitate programme by associations or organizations from outside the Asian region but going to be held in the region.
8. To connect the region with international network like IDEA (International Drama and Education Association) etc. for developing better understanding and to explore networking among other region of the world.
9. To create a documentation base of the Asian region about the achievements of the efforts on ‘theatre and education’.
10. To promote collaboration or joint research on ‘theatre and education’ in Asian region to project the outcome through publications or regular journal etc..

7. Membership :

a) Organisational Members :

Organisations having 5 years of experiences in the field of “theatre and education”, as minimum will have to be recommended by 2/3rd majority of the existing Members followed by 80 percent vote support among the Core team will be declared as Organisational Members. The Organisational members are Voting delegates in ARTEN.

b) Individual Honorary Members :

Individual Experts having 5 years of experiences in the field of “Theatre and Education” as minimum will have to be recommended by 2/3rd majority of the existing Members followed by 80 percent vote support among the Core team will be declared as Organisational Members. The Individual Honorary Members are NON-Voting delegates in ARTEN.

8. The Core team members and responsibilities

Core Team is composed to lead the founding 2 years of ARTEN. Then will follow voting process to elect officials for ARTEN as per the Rules and Regulation.

• Mr. Ashesh Malla (Sarwanam, Nepal) : President

who will preside all the meetings, will be the over all coordinator, will advise all other members.

• Mr. Subodh Patnaik (Natya Chetana, India): General Secretary

who will be official coordinator to represent the network, keep all correspondences and documents, keep accounts and create finance reports as required.

• Mr. Biswajeet Biswas (Rangapeeth, India): Joint Secretary

who will coordinate among the members, propose, process and progress with including or discharging members, keep them informed.

• Mr. Swapan Guha ( Rupantar, Bangladesh) : Resource Mobilisation Secretary

who will propose Budget for ratification at GB, find ways of finance and other resources, and supervise the resource management if necessary.

9. The Founder Members :

There are 8 (7 organisational and 1 Individual) members which founded ARTEN on 3rd August 2009 at Kathmandu who will be established as Founder Members of ARTEN. They compose the General Body for next 2 years. Apart from 4 Core Team members they are : ASOM RANGA KATHA-India (Niranjan Bhuyan), PURBABHYAS-India (Subhas Rawat), BITA –Bangladesh (Sisir Dutta) and V.Ashok Kumar-India (Individual).

10. Operational values :

• The Secretariat will shift from one country to another country in turn and will run from the country of the General Secretary
• ARTEN will gradually expand and include Members from other countries like Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Thailand, Singapore etc.
• When expanding the membership in future ARTEN will be gender sensitive.

THE LOGO OF ARTEN :

Subodh presented different Logo design which was received from Ashesh Malla, Hassan and Subodh. Out of 3 design all thought the simple design of Ashesh Malla could be the one. However the decision can be taken after a month when all others may contribute their ideas. So the idea which was most appreciated was :

3RD AUGUST 12.45 PM : OFFICIAL DECLARATION OF ARTEN

In a spontaneous way we all decided the method of official declaration. The members proposed different ways and finalized which was followed :

Step 1 : Sitting in a circle on the floor, raising the hands up we all shouted A R T E N – ARTEN.

Step 2 : There was a beating of Drum by Ashok to project the joy and happiness of the networking.

Step 3 : Hassan from Bangladesh started dancing a folk step according to the rhythm.

Finally, ARTEN got founded by the rhythm by an Indian, danced by a Bangladeshi on the theatre space of Nepal and joyful voice effect with clippings by all others. The mass-media photographers, video news holders took the movement in detail with all excitement which was unusual for them. This was too different and alternative to think of a inaugural method of an international network. It was a creative expression.