Watch actors turn into acrobats

The pre-fest cultural parade intends to lure the aam aadmi from city streets into auditoriums to watch plays from across the country

The pre-fest cultural parade intends to lure the Aam Aadmi from city streets into auditoriums to watch plays from across the country

What do you do when you want more than the regular theatre-going junta to be part of a festival that will stage 18 plays in seven languages over two weeks? You shrink the plays into 3-minute snippets and get 25-odd actors and musicians to enact them at public places.

The entire troupe is expected to create a spectacle while making enough noise to make sure you don't catch your late evening snooze on the bus back home.

At the end of the cultural parade, they hope to convert some of those inquisitive eyeballs into audiences for the 31st Prithvi Theatre Festival.

The Juloos takes the grandeur of contemporary theatre away from the stage and into a public space where anybody from nana-nani to bachcha party can sneak a peak.

The concept was started nearly 5 years ago when the organisers of the festival thought the aam aadmi was getting alienated from the fest.
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"We felt that the common man was getting distanced from the festival. People thought that the festival is only for a certain section of public and that the tickets are expensive.

The Juloos is a way to let people know that tickets are affordable and they're all invited," says Sanjana Kapoor, the host of the festival.

Since this year, the festival's theme is Theatres of India, the parade also traverses the various forms of theatre that are practised in the country.

The half-hour performance begins with a 'getting ready' part where you simply see the actors getting into costume.

"We want people to look at us and wonder what's going on," says Bijon Mondal, director of the Juloos. Once the audience is enticed, an energy-packed performance is unleashed on a pretty-much unsuspecting junta.
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The entire performance is strung together by an original song titled, Theatres of India, written by Gopal Tiwari.u00a0
For more details on the festival log onto https://www.prithvitheatre.org/

Catch the Juloos between
5 pm to 7 pm on...
October 29 Worli Seaface, Worli
October 30 Five Gardens, Matunga
October 31 Carter Road Promenade, Bandrau00a0
November 1 Kamala Nehru Park, Malabar Hillu00a0
November 2 Shivaji Park, Dadaru00a0
November 3 Horniman Circle Garden, Fort