Welcome to Natya Gram
History
1990, when Natya Chetana was in a philosophy to – “Live together, plan together and work together”, already there was a practice of such a life having a rented house in Bhubaneswar. That is how a full time voluntary spirit of theatre workers could be materialized in action. So when visualizing a future of such a commune living style Subodh could foresee that after say 10 years, when all the members would be married and would have their families, then a complex house of that size would be out of imagination. So there was a need to plan for developing own village. We applied for a plot in Bhubaneswar to the Government but failed to get any response. The process seems to be complicated. Finally a land of around 5 acres near Khurda town was available on a price, which was the complete savings at hand. That is the barren land Natya Chetana occupied. It is a lonely land, getting crowded gradually
Infrastructure
The ideas of living, planning and working were the main features for developing a village. So the land was being demarcated into parts to attend these three objectives. Now we have :
- Natya Ashram : A training complex having sleeping place for 20 artists, kitchen, trainer’s room and the laboratory (Round Hall)
- Natya Gyan : The bigger Red building having photo exhibition about Natya Chetana, Museum of 30 musical instruments, A Library of Books to have documentation activities
- Nata Hata : a place for marketing theatre materials and publications etc. which get activated only during festival but may have a market in future.
- Natya Mandap : a stage for performances which can be converted to any Indian type stage.
- Natya Nivas : a Guest House which will be an entrance of family complex to stay together by Natya Chetana full timers in coming future
- Natya Chetana : the Blue Building, the coordination unit of the village
- Natya Swagata : the reception house is there.
The dream is to have a complex for regular performing team like Repertory for their practice : Natya Shala and a publication house : Natya Lipi
Activities
Natya Chetana create all its theatre production in this laboratory. It conducts all workshops and classes of training here. There are occasional performances on stage. There is Peoples Theatre Festival using all the 6 acres of land. The residents do Yoga, Voice practice, use library, media personnels come for interviews etc. Natya Chetana conducts ritualist event to give a feeling of studentship by having: Saraswati Puja ,Ganesh Puja and Biswakarma Puja. All are connected to theatre and art.
