Indian actor and filmmaker
Kirtana Kumar (born 8 March 1966) is an Indian actor, director, and film-maker based in Bengaluru. She writes on theatre and film and has been published in various national papers and magazines. She has a master's degree in European Classics and American Literature. She has received several major awards and fellowships including from the "McArthur Foundation" and India Foundation for the Arts for her contribution to "theatre" &amp; film. She was educated at Sophia High School, Bangalore. She is a trustee of Women Artists' Group, runs the year long Theatre Lab for children and is the co-owner of Infinite Souls Farm, a rural artists residency in Bangalore.
Life in Theatre.
Kirtana Kumar trained and performed for six years as an actor with The Asian-American Theatre Project at "The Los Angeles Theatre Centre" She is trained in Suzuki Theatre &amp; Butoh, thang-ta, kalari payattu and voice technique. She continues to study with and train other artists.
Over the years, her work has included lead roles in plays such as "Agnes of God", "Gati &amp; Bhagawadajukam" at Questor’s Theatre, London, the world premiere of Bill C. Davis’ "Spine" at the Cast Theatre, Los Angeles, "Shakuntala" at Trestle Theatre, St. Alban’s and a stage adaptation of Sri Aurobindo’s Savitri called "In the Hour of God". Her production of Genet’s classic "The Maids" played at several festivals including the Ranga Shankara Festival and Bahuroopi Festival at Rangayana. Her solo work includes Dario Fo "Medea" &amp; "Orgasmo Adulto" and "Unruly Women – Or Shakespeare’s Chicks", a lec-dem devised by her based on women characters in the plays of Shakespeare. She received a New Performance Grant from India Foundation for the Arts for her path-breaking promenade play "The Wedding Party" which received much critical acclaim. Subsequently, she directed Eugène Ionesco’s "The Bald Soprano" and most recently, directed and performed in Dario Fo’s "Orgasmo Adulto Escapes from the Zoo" for Jagriti Theatre. She is currently directing Steven Berkoff’s "The Secret Love Life of Ophelia" for the Bangalore stage and is reviving "The Wedding Party" as both a promenade and proscenium performance.
For the past 4 years she has been engaged in an Indo-German collaboration between Ranga Shankara and Schnawwl, Mannheim. In 2011, she choreographed the Schnawwl production of the Ramayana called "Das Lied von Rama". She is the dramaturg and assistant director of the internationally acclaimed "Boy with a Suitcase" which most recently played at Augen Blick Mal in Berlin 2013. After Berlin, Kirtana conducted a workshop on Illusion and Reality in Theatre for the actor’s ensemble at Munster Stadt-Theatre.
In 1999, she was a facilitator for the "Royal National Theatre" Youth Project – Project Nadia. In September 2001 she was commissioned by Common Ground Sign Dance Theatre Company, Liverpool to write and direct a new piece for them. This resulted in a work titled "Karma Café." The play premiered in Manchester. She facilitated the Common Ground performance and workshop tour of India and made an experimental film called "Once Upon a Warm September" on the Common Ground tour of South Canara. In 2004 she directed Picasso’s "Four Little Girls" as an experiment with words and paint.
In order to work laterally and politically with theatre, Kirtana has been facilitating theatre projects on gender and sexuality for the non-governmental sector. Some of the organizations she has consulted with include ISST, Sakshi, Ifsha, Hengsara Hakkina Sangha, National Law School Autonomous law schools in India, World Vision and United Theological College. One of these workshops was the genesis for the play "My Children who should be running thru Vast Open Spaces…" which was subsequently turned into a documentary film for Madhyam. In 2006 she was a consultant to Path India on a Magnet Theatre/ HIV/AIDS risk reduction project in four states. In 2009 she was Director of Ancillary Programs at the Ranga Shankara’s Children’s Theatre Festival.
References.
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