About Natakam Lab

Christened Natakam International Theatre Research Lab, it was intially founded by Sreejith Remanan and Renjith Janardhanan. The core group widened further, with three more young theatre lovers and professionals joining hands - Devendranath A S (Devan), Sujith Vighneshwar & Subrahmanian Santakumar (Subru).

All five are alumuni of the School of Drama, University of Calicut, Trichur and it is their deep rooted love for theatre and performance studies that brought them together for the goal of establishing a space for performance and performance studies... a space that would cross all kinds of cultural, geographical and political barriers.

To elaborate the lab aims to promote and support specific practice based researches , artistic exchanges, productions associated with Ethnic, Intercultural and Interdisciplinary fields of Contemporary theatre & performances. Natakam Theatre Lab intends to open up , create and support the on-going and the new practice based researches in intercultural theatre and looks forward to the further developments to broaden the conversations between tradition and contemporary performance practices, exploring the synergies, interconnections, inter-relations between the theatre actor training systems, cultures and various schools/practices. In brief the Lab looks at creating new dialogues and contributing new vistas to an Intercultural theatre society in the fields of both performance and research.

While the formalities of the group are being firmed up, the group is taking its first baby steps - A production scheduled for the 26th of July 2009. The production is being directed by Ramesh Varma, another alumunus of School of Drama and currently the Theatre Dean at the Sri Sankara University, Kalady, is based on the final acts from two plays by Mahakavi Bhasa on the two epics - the Ramayana and the Mahabharata.