On the Edge

Updated on: Wednesday, December 14, 2011

The British Council and Ranan India organised a discussion on Culture and Climate Change at the British Council. The discussion, moderated by Rajarshi Banerji, featured speakers such as actor, artist and producer Vicky Long, artistic director of Transport Theatre, Douglas Rintoul and members of Ranan India, Amlan Chaudhuri and Vikram Iyengar. The discussion threw light on The Edge, a collaborative performance project of Ranan India and Transport Theatre UK supported by the British Council.

“The Edge is a research and development collaborative performance project initiated by Transport Theatre, UK with Ranan, Calcutta with the central themes of climate change and migration as impulses,” explained Long to the audience that thronged the venue. “It will explore human stories related to environmental change in the Sunderbans and the South East coast of England,” added Rintoul.

Funded by the British Council's 'Connections through Culture' programme, this year long performance collaboration project was launched in February 2011 with a series of Skype interactions including rehearsal and performance sharing between Douglas Rintoul and Vicky Long of Transport Theatre and Vikram Iyengar and Amlan Chaudhuri of Ranan.

“During the first phase of the project a performance created with the students of the Central School of Speech and Drama, London under the direction of Douglas, was showcased via audio line and two of Ranan's process videos responding to a shared source text were screened,” said Iyengar.
The second phase comprised of a one-month UK trip for Chaudhuri and Iyengar. “We attended many workshops there such as the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, workshops with performers at University Centre, Folkestone and Open Workshop at the University of Kent,” informed Chaudhuri. “We also did some R&D works with performers at the National Theatre Studio, London,” he added.

After the panel discussion the panelists were greeted with questions from the audience. The riveting discussion was followed by the screening of Changing Arctic – a film by Cape Farewell documenting three expeditions to the Arctic with a group of artists and scientists.

On the Edge

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