08 May 2009

Ranan's Collaboration with Radio JU (90.8 FM)

Ranan is delighted to announce our collaboration with Jadavpur University's Community Radio Channel available on 90.8 FM.
We sincerely believe that as performing artists and responsible members of a civil society, we have a role to play in responding to and even helping shape the society we live in today. Today's world is beset with problems and issues of every kind. How do performing artists / performing arts respond to and represent these - if at all? It is with this basic query that we approached Radio JUs with the idea of a weekly programme around Performance and Society: how do the two relate to each other, if and how issues we confront on a daily basis find any reflection in performance, what are the dangers of such representation, perception and communication, do we run the risk of trivialising or justifying issues that are extremely complex?
The weekly programme on Radio JU will bring together artists, scholars, commentators, audience, programme organisers and others to discuss a variety of contemporary issues through the optic of the performing arts.

The first series of episodes focuses on the very contemporary issue of 'Youth Violence'. The inaugural episode featured a panel discussion moderated by Samantak Das with theatre directors and others addressing two fundamental questions: What is Youth Violence? How can / may one deal with it on stage?

The second episode addressed echoes of youth violence in Peter Shaffer's play Equus and in Ranan's recent dance-theatre production of the same. The programme featured an informal conversation between Vikram Iyengar (director of Ranan's production), Anjum Katyal (arts editor and writer), and S. V. Raman (Programme Officer of Max Mueller Bhavan). Underlying the discussion were excerpts of the original music of our production composed by Neel Adhikari.

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