And the stage is set for the newest edition of German Spotlight in Bengaluru.

Over the past four years, this arts project has facilitated a lot more than just a cultural exchange between India and Germany. It’s a discourse between actors, directors and playwrights of two countries that aims at helping the audience “discover the fact that people around the world have more in common than we think”.

A collaboration between Sandbox Collective  band Goethe-Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, the 2018 edition of the initiative will showcase English translations of four German plays in the form of dramatized readings.
Debosmita Dam, who is spearheading the project alongside Nimi Ravindran, says, “German Spotlight is a cultural exchange of a different kind. The scripts chosen for the dramatized readings are written by contemporary German playwrights, who are quite excited about their work being presented to the Indian audience. Although there is no set theme for the readings, the stories – which are made accessible through an online bank at Goethe-Institut – are interesting and quite relatable.” In the past, some of the German Spotlight scripts had been staged as full-length theatre productions in the city.

Laced with interactive sessions before and after the act, dramatised readings have been quite popular among theatre lovers of all age groups in the city. “It’s a curious storytelling format that the audiences usually find to be more engaging than watching a play at an auditorium, as they can almost visualise the scenes and be part of the experience,” adds Debosmita, who is also directing one of the four acts, titled Norway Today.

The show is opening on June 30 with the reading of Peer Pleasures, directed by Karen D’Mello. Speaking about the experience, she says, “Rehearsed play readings give a lot of freedom to the actor as well as the director to explore varied modes of acting within the performance. It’s a flexible format – something like the experience between writing a short story and a novel. Cut to Peer Pleasures, although it’s a German script, the story holds universal relevance. The plot is set in 2006, when SMS was the preferred mode of communication. It was fun to work around the basic emojis of that time.” The cast of this play includes artistes Honey Raza, Nisha Abdulla, Pranay Pandey, Sneha Ram, Vishnu Narain and Sunayana Premchander.

The four plays…

Peer Pleasures – directed by Karen D’Mello
The play is about six university students struggling to find their way through their dreams, their longing for love and their insecurities in the quest for something permanent.

Nightblind – directed by Kanchan Bhattacharyya

It deals with issues of familial discord, friendship and abuse in a relationship from a young and urban viewpoint.

The Jazz Conductor – directed by Lekha Naidu

The play speaks of music and war and hope. It brings to life the romance and nostalgia of the Jazz age, love for theatre and the good-old family amid unspeakable horrors.

Norway Today – directed by Debosmita Dam

This story is essentially a conversation between two young people, who belong to a generation where most of their interactions happen through technology.

source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / Home> News> City News> Bangalore News / by Reema Gowalla / TNN / June 29th, 2018

Bandstand

England witnessed the brass band movement in the 1800s at the peak of the industrial revolution. Musical ensembles using a standardised range of brass and percussion instruments were in demand among the working classes. The latter appreciated cheap and good entertainment. By the late 1800s, as industries expanded and working-class numbers rose, brass bands became very sought-after in that country.

It did not take long to reach the colonies. Bengaluru’s bandstand came up in the 1870s. According to the Mysore Gazetteer (1897), there was a double-pillared, ground-level bandstand near the Bowring Institute. Then, around 1914, a proposal was mooted to demolish it and construct a bandstand inside the Cubbon Park. An ornamental, eight-pillared iron structure was imported from Walter Macfarlane & Co in Glasgow.

“Shipping such ornate structures from England was a way to show British strength and dominance in the colonies,” said Poornima Dasharathi of Unhurried.in, who conducts heritage walks in the Cubbon Park. “The bandstand hosted the best regimental bands and catered mostly to the soldiers and residents in the civil and military station here.”

Initially, the bandstand was located in a rose garden. Officially inaugurated in 1918, the Mysore Infantry Band performed there every Wednesday and Saturday, while the Madras Pioneer Group performed on the fourth Thursday of every month. The latter also put up a grand show there in 1927 to commemorate the silver jubilee of Nalwadi Krishnaraja Wadiyar’s rule. Even the Royal Air Force band played here.

Soon, the popularity of the bandstand increased and it became difficult to accommodate the crowds that turned up for the performances. At the suggestion of prince Jayachamarajendra Wadiyar, a music aficionado himself, it was shifted to its current location in front of the State Central Library. “According to old Anglo-Indian residents of the Cantonment, patriotic songs and Kannada music played at the bandstand post-Independence,” said Dasharathi.  Performances were organised by the Bangalore Municipal Corporation every weekend. “This died down in the 60s because many other venues of entertainment started mushrooming.”