In December 2006 Myriad’s Artistic Director, Kevin Rowntree, visited Kolkata (Calcutta) to develop work with a range of practitioners to be presented at the Nandikar National Theatre Festival.  The festival was held at the Academy of Fine Arts in Kolkata and displayed international and national theatre events.  Kevin had been invited by the British Council to undertake this visit following the success of Myriad’s production of Red Oleander in the summer 2006.  During the visit, Kevin worked with the following practitioners and organisations:

• Ramanjit Kaur – An established theatre director and performer. She recently developed work at the Theatre Royal Plymouth in the UK and she has been an active trainer for The British Council for a number of years. Ramanjit Kaur runs Creative Arts, a cultural unit, devising performance and workshops with theatre practitioners.  Kevin will be running a series workshops to demonstrate Myriad’s approach to performance and develop a workshop production of some of Tagore’s work.
  
  
• Suman Mukherjee - The Artistic Director of Trityo Sutra Theatre Company in Kolkata who has previously produced Rakta Karabi (Red Oleander) in Bengali.  Kevin will be developing a joint presentation of selected scenes from Red Oleander as a symposium for the festival.
  
  
• Rudraprasad Sengupta – Leader of Nandikar, one of India’s most influential theatre groups.  He is also the Director of the Nandikar Theatre Festival.  Rudraprasad is also a prominent actor who has worked with Bernardo Bertolucci on Little Buddha.
  
  
• Ananda Lal – Theatre director and professor of Drama and English at Jadavpur University in Kolkata.  He is also the pre-eminent translator of Rabindranath Tagore’s work in English.  Kevin will be discussing the possibility of further translations of Tagore’s work to be produced by Myriad Productions in the UK and the opportunities for bringing these to India.  Myriad is the only company in the West to have produced Lal’s groundbreaking translations.
  
  
• Visva-Bharati (Santiniketan) – The University founded by Rabindranath Tagore and now a centre of international importance.  Kevin has been invited to conduct a series of workshops at the Institute of Drama Dance and Music where students undertake highly specialised study of Tagore’s work.

Following this work in Kolkata, Kevin travelled to Kerala where he spent several weeks researching south Indian performing arts, including traditional forms such as Kathakali and Kalaripayattu but also emerging art forms and performance using new media. 

His research will form the basis for the development of Myriad’s next production in 2007. A complete report on the research and travels is available on this website in PDF format.