Hillcrest Spring News

India warming up to Wenlock and Mandeville

The four years' wait is closing in and all eyes are set on London where the best sportspersons from around the globe will converge to smash records and scale new heights of glory.



Wenlock and Mandeville have become familiar names as the entitre country waits to gear up to the London Olympics.The BBC School reporters published statistics from a survey conducted amongst parents, teachers and students of our school.



Question asked :India is a country driven by a population of 1 billion +people. What can be the cause of India's bleak performance as compared to other small nations or Asian giant like China?

Response :15% of the interviewees cited corruption and politics as the cause,

60% felt it was lack of infrastructure,15% felt it was lack of proper infrastructure,10% felt it was lack of interests.



Question :What relevance does 2012 London Olympics hold for you?

Response :35% of the interviewees felt that participation of the country matters, 50% feel that it is an opportunity to improve our performance and medal tallly, 5% feel that participation is a waste of time and resources, 10% feel that participation will provide better opportunities for the sportspersons.



Question: In a country like Indis , where cricket has assumed the proportion of a national sport, how do the Olympics provide an opportunity for other sports?

Response :50% of the interviewed feel that the Olympic Games provide international exposure,30% feel that the Olympics inculcate spirit ofsportsmanship ,20% feel that Olympics give an exposure to regional sports.


On an optimistic note, we are pinning our hopes on our young brigade to post an impressive medal tally at the London Olympics. Our BBC School reporters will post latest updates from Royal Artillery Barracks, Excel Exhibition Centre and Lords, where our Indian shooters, archers and boxers hope to make it big and strike gold!

Hillcrest February Newsletter 2012

Theatre Workshop with Students' Profile

ANKITA MUKHERJEE

Hello there!

Well to begin with, I am Ankita Mukherjee, a sixteen-year-old teen, from the city of joy and festivals, Kolkata, India. India is the country famous for its rich cultural heritage, and presently regarded by the world as “bollywood”. J Everything over here is same as it is for the rest of the world.

Life has always been a struggle, therefore in the hustle-bustle of the daily schedule I somehow manage to nurture my subjects of interest. Theatre, singing, and performing were my only passions as I grew up, and as the clichés say, “Life is a struggle” it was difficult to keep up with both my studies and my passions. However, it never stopped me from spending hours listening to music, and watching theatricals on the flat screens. Apart from the passion- part, I love both reading and writing poems. I am not really a bibliophilic though I like reading, but in cases of special interest, I turn into one. Mystery, romance, fiction and reflective articles always grab my attention.

Speaking more about me, Music, as I have mentioned earlier, has been a part of my life. Its works more like a lifesaver, it heals me, clams me down, energises me and brings me alive!

Apart from this, I like interacting with people, and I love making friends.

It was unexpected, as I came across the news of our school going to England, and enrolling its name in the ROYAL SHAKESPEARE COMPANY. Soon we came up with the idea of reaching out and knowing theatre in its actual form. Therefore, on 11.11.11 we started with the basic introduction, where we introduced ourselves with various activities and programmes involving theatre. We also presented various lines from Shakespeare’s text “Macbeth” in the form a freeze-image.

Divyani Rao

AGE: 16

DPS NEWTOWN THEATRE CLUB PROFILE

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DAY 1: 17^th November, 2011

On this day we first learned how to coordinate with each other. We were made to sit in a circle and were asked to make an eye contact with our friend and as soon as we would understand that someone is looking at us we would stand. From this I got to learn how I can give signals and clues to each other when we are performing on stage. We were then divided into couples in which one would be the leader and his/her partner had to follow the leader’s hand. Then we were again divided into groups of two or three and were given a condition to make freeze frames. In this I had become a wife being scolded by her husband, a monster, a dancer and many more. At the end we all we again divided into groups of three and were given to act out a war scene. In this we had acted out a scene in which there is a fight going on between an Indian Godand the devil. And the God is standing on the chariot. I had become the devil since I was the one wearing black and black is considered as evil. At the end we showed how the good won against the bad. We were given a chart paper and a paint from which we had to make our props. I made a sword and used the paint on our body to make it look like we are wearing ornaments. It was an awesome day. I really enjoyed theatre for the first time.

DAY 3: 2^nd December 2011

On this day we were given extracts from Macbeth and were asked to relate them in our lives. Our group had got an extract from act 1 scene 2 in which the witches are instigating Macbeth. We related it to the student’s council of our school where three teachers instigate a student to become the President of our school.

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DAY 4: 19^th January 2012

On this day I came up with an idea of enacting Macbeth as an underworld don. We all then sat together and discussed about everyone’s ideas and planned it out. Later we all went to the computer lab to make our profiles.

School : Delhi Public School, Newtown.

Name : Aamir Ali. Gender : Male

Day 1 of workshop on 11th November 2011:

1st workshop of the Theater club in DPS Newtown starts after school during our extra classes. None of us knew it would later turn up to be so much fun, as in SHAKESPEARE being enjoyable. The 1st day kicked off with Anjana ma’am introducing the Royal Shakespeare Company and we had to dress up with a few props given to us, before which we had to describe ourselves on a piece of paper using crayons given to us. Towards the end we played two cool games. One of them was just like “follow the leader” as in we had to 1st follow the correct commands and later the contradictory of those!! The second was a game where we had chairs 1 less than the total number of players and the denner had to occupy a chair. SOUNDS FUN!!!!

Day 2 of workshop on 17th November 2011:

The second day of our workshoptook place in the pre-primary play area of our school, today we played around with major aspects of theatre. The 1st thing we did was learnt coordination with a game where we were all told to follow a person’s hand and later he did the same. Then we were made to walk around and make a group of as many numbers as we would be told at a drum beat and then make a freeze frame on the given topic.

After these two, we were given art items like chart paper, paint etc. and we were told to show a small scene from a war scene. Ours was of an INDO-CHINA war where I was the soldier from INDIA.

Day 3 of workshop on 1st December 2011:

Today’s workshop was conducted in a 45mins slot of the day called the Zero period instead of the 2hrs slot for which we stay back each Thursday. Today we were given a brief introduction about the Felicity Kendal and the Crossings and about the documentary they were making on Macbeth and we were also given the Consent Forms for going to Kalamandir, an auditorium in Kolkata on the 8th December.

Day 4 of workshop on 2nd December 2011:

Today we were given excerpts from Macbeth and we were told to fit in the same excerpt in a recent time scenario. We didn’t do much since today also we had a 45mins slot. Our plot was relate to the School Student’s Council.

Day 5 of workshop on 8th December 2011:

Majority of the Theatre Club members opted to come to the show. This was 1 stage performance which all of us thoroughly enjoyed. We were showed apart of the documentary which was being made by Crossings and the Felicity Kendal on Macbeth. We were shown characteristics of Lady Macbeth expressed in terms of Indian mythology and Indian dance forms.

Day 6 of workshop on 5th January 2012:

We spoke Shakespeare’s scripts of Macbeth, we chose a scene and the members of the club took up characters and they spoke the speeches of that character with same expressions and reaction the characters might have had. I got to act Macbeth (Act I, Scene III). After this we were all divided into 3 groups. Each group was given a scene and was told to fit in the plot of each scene in our own plots related to the modern day scenario and was supposed to come prepared the next workshop with the same.

Day 7 of workshop on 19th January 2012:

On the 7th day we fleshed out the ideas and came to a proper plot with which we decided to proceed to the much more exciting activity of the club which was to enact our own play with just a handful of people and the group had to have their own sound manager, cast and props which would be completely handmade…

DPS NEWTOWN WRAPS UP THEATRE CLUB ACTIVITIES FOR THE SESSION 2011-2012

After two and a half months of theatre club activities we finally come down to our last project of the club, a small production of our version of Macbeth. This production by the students of the theatre club with the help of Anjana Ma’am and Dana Ma’am will be put up for our school to watch as well as for Tracy ma’am, coming down from England and Lali Ma’am, coming down from South Africa during their visit from 15^th to 22^nd March. This production is distinctly divided into three different scenes and each scene is a play within itself. Each scene will have its own cast and crew working on it separately. However the three scenes will naturally be linked and show the progression of Macbeth’s character, from the embedding of the seeds of murder to a state of insanity in the Banquet scene. As usual our play will have its own flavour of Indian tadka (spices) where the entire team has put in their own innovative ideas.

However at the end of the day I think what will really stay with us is the time spent together working as a team. As a group we did everything from randomly running around in a hall, to quoting Shakespeare at the drop of a hat; from portraying human emotions and relationships, to acting out a war scene. Or even staying up late into night discussing the strength of Banquo’s moral fiber which prevented from being lured by the witches and grabbing power for himself; to discussing in class what Macbeth would have worn had he been born in India.

All of us have grown immensely from these workshops. It has helped us improve our understanding of Shakespeare and theatre, but even more importantly it has made us more confident as human beings. It has made us more aware of ourselves and our talent. And it has broken down a large number of barriers. All the work put in has really paid off and the response has been overwhelming. The students have been very involved and are all equally excited. They have been constantly at my back to give me all the details of each workshop. They have done their level best to compile their profiles innovatively and it shows. We may not be a very big group (twenty seven of us) but our passion sure is large. In the end “MASQUE”, which is what we call ourselves have all fallen deeply in love with what we do- theatre. And this is due in no small part to the inspiration from Anjana Ma’am and Dana Ma’am.

BBC School report :2nd Milestone

International Literary Boundaries Broken At Milan Mela, Kolkata, India

From Charles Dickens to Chetan Bhagat, from Valerio Massimo Manfredi to Vikram Seth, literature converged at Milan Mela from 26-31st January 2012. The Calcutta Literary Meet was held by the British Councli to celebrate the bicentenary of the 19th century writer, Charles Dickens.
The event was inaugrated by novelist, poet, librettist, translator and humourist Vikram Seth and author Sunil Gangopadhay.Side by side, the Annual Kolkata Book Fair also commenced on 25th January, 2012, with Italy being the theme this time. To commemorate the theme, a model of the Leaning Tower of Pisa was built and a special stall was set up which contained books by Italian authors put on display.
The British Council invited contemporary writers all across India to this event like Chetan Bhagat, Amish, Shirshendu Mukhopadhay and Vikram Seth. Archaeologist, professor at Luigi University at Milan and writer Valerio Massimo Manfredi's visit to India saw him speaking on how literature gets strengthened by history.
Besides the famous authors, the umpteen number of books also grabbed the attention of the masses. It has almost become a tradition for more or less the entire population of Kolkata to visit the annual Book Fair in the twelve days it is held. The tremendous crowd did not deter the visitors from buying their favourite books, or even checking out their favourite stalls. The children flocked to the Dante and Mark Twain pavilions.
We had our students from DPS Newtown attending the Reading Room session. They were Sushmit of Class-VII and Nilabro of Class-VI. Sushmit said, "I liked the stalls put up by British Council and Oxford. We had Scarlett Cook from the British Council reading a chapter from Oliver Twist." Nilabro said that Vikram Seth came to introduce his new book, 'The Rivered Earth'. They liked the fact that the Meet was advanced and better administered.
Most of the cities were not left behind in this attempt, be it Jaipur or Hyderabad ,as in the words of Jai Arun Singh, writer and blogger, "It gets a bit tiring. Almost every city and town wants to have a literary festival of its own."
Despite being only two days apart, The Jaipur Literary Festival and The Calcutta Literary Meet were on completely different idealogies. The Jaipur Literary Festival was based on authors and literary figures while The Calcutta Literary Meet was more on books and publications. For Calcutta, it was a significant first.

COMPILED BY:- BBC School Correspondants from DPS Newtown, Kolkata-Sayanti, Semanti, Anmol.