Chinglon Mapan Tampak Ama to enthral US

You are here: Home » reviews » theatre

E-Pao! Theatre - Chinglon Mapan Tampak Ama to enthral US

By: Manipur Information Centre *

Ratan Thiyam's latest production Chinglon Mapan Tampak Ama (Nine Hills One Valley) will be show cased in the United States at different places covering the whole breadth of the country touching from East Coast to West Coast in October and November.

His theatre company - Chorus Repertory Theatre that is now celebrating its 30th Anniversary will open its five-week US tour with four performances at the exquisite BAM Howard Gilman Opera House having 2109 seat capacity of the Brooklyn Academy of Music in New York from October 11 to 14 consecutively.

The tour is co-sponsored by Asia Society and Lisa Booth Management and supported by the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and the Ford Foundation. The theatre company will stage the play at the 2750-seat Prudential Hall of the New Jersey Performing Arts Center on October 15 and at the 1450-seat Memorial Auditorium of the Carolina Performing Arts at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill on October 26 and 27.

There will be two shows at Lied Center of Kansas having 2000 seat capacity at University of Kansas, Lawrence on November 1 and 2. Thereafter, the company will move to Northern California to stage the play at the 1800-seat Jackson Hall of Mondavi Center at University of California, Davis on November 8.

There will be two performances at the 2035-seat Zellerbach Hall of Cal Performances at University of California, Berkeley on November 10 and 11. In connection with his works, Ratan Thiyam will interact with New York audience and the members of the Brooklyn Academy of Music on October 12 at 6 pm at BAM Rose Cinemas in New York.

Ratan Thiyam speaking at the opening of 'The Shrine'.

Before presenting the play at Mondavi Center on November 8, Sudipto Chatterjee, Assistant Professor of the Department of Dance, Theatre and Performances, University of California Berkeley will give pre-performance lecture and after the play there will be question and answer session.

On making theatre, Ratan Thiyam will interact with theatre lovers at Stephens Hall of University of California on November 9 at 4 pm. On the occasion, Sudipto Chatterjee will interview him on the stage. There will be a workshop on performance and practices of Chorus Repertory Theatre of Manipur at Zellerbach Hall on November 10 in the forenoon.

Ratan Thiyam and his artistes will lead the workshop including the music and movement that are an intrinsic part of their performances.

In a publicity statement issued by the Cal Performances in connection with the show at Zellerbach Hall, it says, "Anyone fortunate enough to witness the luminous debut of composer-writer-director-choreographer Ratan Thiyam's Chorus Repertory Theatre at Cal Performances in 2000 will thrill to the news of a return visit by this renowned company from India.

The 2006 tour features Thiyam's latest masterwork, Nine Hills One Valley, a haunting and poetic theatrical allegory confronting the turmoil that now consumes Thiyam's native Manipur.

Here Thiyam asks: In the face of violence, venality, instability, and poverty, How do people sustain themselves when their cultural traditions are cut off and lost?" Mention may be made that Thiyam's last production Uttar Priyadarshi dazzled American audiences in the year 2000 when it was performed in the United States.

"Nine Hills One Valley is one of the trilogy which I have developed. The first one was Hey Nungshibi Prithibi (My Earth, My Love) which depicts the journey of human civilization creating chaos and violence which affects human relations that we never learnt.

The third series of the trilogy is titled as The Prologue which tells about human evolution, and is under production," says Ratan Thiyam.

Ratan Thiyam describes Nine Hills One Valley as "a collage of many thoughts without a conventional plot and a presentation of contemporary ideas, a document of a restless society and political turmoil where the sufferers are only the poor people". The play performed by a cast of 26 actors had been premiered in New Delhi last October.

Related Article:

Manipur Information Centre supplied this information to The Sangai Express
This article was webcasted on September 24th, 2006

* Comments posted by users in this discussion thread and other parts of this site are opinions of the individuals posting them (whose user ID is displayed alongside) and not the views of e-pao.net. We strongly recommend that users exercise responsibility, sensitivity and caution over language while writing your opinions which will be seen and read by other users. Please read a complete Guideline on using comments on this website.