CYCO THEATRE: THEATRE FOR AWARENESS

WHY - CYCO ?

Natya Chetana developed a concept called “PSYCHO THEATRE” (now spelt as “CYCO-THEATRE”) within the course of its activities. Its theatre is carried by bicycles to long distances like hundreds of Kilometers (the longest one till today is 700 kilometers to put up 70 shows on the way) to establish the strength of Indian theatre form, which is not dependant on modern stage gazettes and choice of the theme Approach for Rural areas and CYCLE as the career are the demonstration of social commitment. Natya Chetana theatre instead of giving peace and cooling the brain rather provokes the psychological status of the audiences to debate and think.

WHY - THEATRE ?

According to Indian concept, human beings get information through their five sense-organs : Eyes, Ears, Skin, Nose and Tongue (Pancha indriya). Out of those, eyes and ears are principal. So Audio, Visual and Audio-visual are the effective medium to give or receive information. Theatre is the only most powerful medium among ‘audio-visual’ methods, which has been possible to explore by the common mass. So theatre has been creating opinion in our society since the beginning of the evolution. Indian traditional theatre practices still exist even though inveded by Modernization and Globalization due to its deep root.

WHY - AWARENESS ?

Within a human being, the brain (Mind) gives directions to the organs to act. For every action, there has to be a foundation created by the “mind”. If we want to see a change in our society, we need to address the mind of the people. So Cyco theatre aims to provoke the mind,at opening up the mouth of the silent ones of our society and encouraging them for searching a solution / answer to their problems being united. The audiences do not just received a message or information or advice of any solution from us, rather get mentally disturbed, start talking about it and in best cases take united action to search solutions by themselves. Then we say they have become aware.

HOWEVER THEATRE CAN NOT BE A MAGIC STICK TO TOUCH AND ENSURE A CHANGE IN LIFE. THE LIFE AND THE THEATRE ART FORM ARE DYNAMIC WHICH HAVE IMPACT ON EACH OF THE AUDIENCES DIFFERENTLY. SO IT IS NOT SIMPLY A TOOL OF COMMUNICATION.

• Search partner organisations, which are present at the grassroots level with a commitment for the follow up action after the theatre performances.
• Go to the people and Learn indigenous, traditional cultural forms; study their lives, problems, incidents and root causes.
• Create a script on the subject prioritized through consultation with field organizations, own realization and people’s need.
• Create the shape of the play using the indigenous - folk elements found.
• Organise cycle expedition to go back to the people with the theatre, If necessary group may move by foot in mountain areas, by boat in islands but never by any vehicle.
• Arrive without notice, mainly in daytime, call the audiences by beating drums inviting through a song for coming near the acting area, declare the show through poster.
• Perform the theatre within 30-45 minutes (as much as the people can stand for the show).
• Documenting the show through photos, video without the attention of the audiences.
• Engage observers among the audiences in disguise to record the reactions of the audiences during the performances, count no's of audiences.
• Keep eyes on the responses after the shows. Clapping is a sign of failure , rather silence, debate or discussions after the show is a positive sign of being aware.
• There use to be a begging for public donations after the performance by extending towels to the public.
• Reflect the performances and the impact, on the way, time to time during the cycle expedition.
• Stay and get food contributed by the villagers or grassroots organizations.
• After returning from the expedition, an evaluation is organised to know the over all successes and failures.
• Collect report of follow up action in the field through the partner organisations.