What is your personal mythology? This was the driving question of Theater Mitu’s South India Artist Intensive in June of 2024. A rigorous, three-week intensive invited international participants to train at the Visthar Center for Social Justice and Peace in Bangalore, India.
Primarily a physical training experience, we attended courses taught by masters of their form, such as in Kathakali, Kalaripayattu, Mohiniattam, Yakshagana, and Carnatic Singing. Throughout a series of cultural immersion opportunities visiting numerous temples, exploring the city of Bangalore, setting out on a pilgrimage to Bahubali, and conversing with artists in a masterclass setting, we were immersed in artistic methodologies that were aesthetically, philosophically, and geographically different from our own.
Additionally framed by Theater Mitu’s research and archive in arts practice, physical creation laboratory, and dramaturgy of disruption philosophy, we interrogated our individual contexts and belief systems as they intersect with the contemporary moment. I found this experience to be essential to my development as an independent artist and person, existing in the context of our greater communities.
