The international theatre festival of Kerala

Izzo

Joni

Lydia

Melvin

The Theatre Company group of Lydia, Rogers, Pharel, Ruth, Joni, Doreen, Nina, Isaac, Melvin and Director Keith joined companies from South Africa, Pakistan and India in an eight day cultural extravaganza in the city of Thrissur in the state of Kerala in Southern India, organized by the International Theatre Festival of Kerala. This year the Festival was named The Afro-Asian Theatre Panorama.

TTC performed 2 pieces, Githaa and Sauti Kimya, in a 1,500 person outside auditorium known as the Bharath Murali Nagar, under starlit Keralan skies to an audience that is deeply in love with the culture of performance. Their response to the work and the performers was overwhelmingly enthusiastic; the shows seemed to feed a hunger for knowledge about East Africa. Question and Answer sessions were held during the mornings after the performances, where performance professionals and academics were able to probe deeper into the origins and production of our work.
We, in turn, were able to benefit from watching performances in different styles and backgrounds such as the remarkably moving Every Year Every Day I am Walking (from Magnet Theatre in Cape Town, South Africa) and Shankar’s extraordinary Sahyante Makan (India-Japan) about a temple elephant who runs berserk, as well the ground-breaking satire on religious fundamentalism, Burquavaganza, by the Ajoka Theatre of Pakistan, written and directed by Pakistan’s most well-known theatre practitioner, Shahid Nadeem.

We are honoured to have taken our place amongst such pioneering professionals, and hope that we are able to bring Kenyan work to more countries, and host some of this fabulous work in our own International Performance Festival very soon.

FOR FURTHER INFORMATION ABOUT THE THEATRE COMPANY, OR THE FESTIVAL, PLEASE CONTACT KEITH PEARSON.

Pharel

Rogers

Ruth

Keith