New field school in India

A group of 14 University of Victoria theatre artists will depart Monday for the southeast coast of India to help launch the country’s first intergenerational theatre company. UVic PhD candidate Matthew Gusul, with 13 students from UVic’s Department of Theatre, will work with a team of Indian directors in India’s Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry regions to encourage local seniors and rural youth—many of whom were displaced or otherwise made vulnerable by the 2006 tsunami—to perform their own stories and create new lines of dialogue across generations.

Gusul, an applied theatre practitioner who has done similar fieldwork in Mexico and Guatemala, has been working for the past two years with 80 people in Tamil Nadu’s eco-friendly elder village Tamaraikulam. By positively highlighting the life experiences of these elders and 750 young students of the Isha Vidhya Matriculation School—the village and school were both created as a result of the tsunami—Gusul hopes to help nurture stronger community relations, with assistance on the ground from NGO HelpAge India.

“India doesn’t have old age pensions or facilities for seniors,” says Gusul. “In 1947, the life expectancy in India was about 42 years of age, whereas today it is closer to 64. And when disasters happen, seniors are the last in the pecking order of importance. Our students are there to bear witness to the process of getting this company up and running and creating its very first performance.”

The company will rehearse using similar intergenerational theatre techniques as those developed by Edmonton’s GeriActors and Friends and New York City’s Roots and Branches. Their first performance is scheduled for Nov. 27.

More on the new UVic field school.

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High rez images from Gusul’s 2013 trip are available upon request. To arrange a media interview via Skype with Gusul or one of the students while in India, please contact John Threlfall or Tara Sharpe below.

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