Strange Lines at Ahmedabad and Thrissur

Pro Helvetia presents Strange Lines, an Indo - Swiss multilingual theatre collaboration based on the graphic novel anthology ‘When Kulbhushan Met Stöckli’ at Ahmedabad and Thrissur. [dated December 2010]

Pro Helvetia - Swiss Arts Council presents Strange Lines An Indo - Swiss multilingual theatre collaboration based on the graphic novel anthology ‘When Kulbhushan Met Stöckli’ at

Ahmedabad, Gujarat - 18 December 2010 at 830 pm Natarani Theatre, Darpana Academy of Performing Arts Ahmedabad

Thrissur, Kerala - 22 December 2010 at 9:00 pm International Theatre Festival of Kerala, KT Muhamed Smaraka Theatre Kerala Sangeetha Nadaka Academy, Thrissur

Concept and Direction - Amitesh Grover
Cast - Amit Saxena and Julia Perazzini
Text Work & New Writing – Amit Saxena, Julia Perazzini & Keshav Kumar
Video Design – Michel Weber
Sound Design - Ish S Drawing – Dheerendra Dwivedi
Production Design – Kumaradas T N Synopsis 

The departure point of this theatrical collaboration is a comics collaboration – When Kulbhushan Met Stockli - recently released by HarperCollins Publishers, India. Nineteen graphic novelists share their experiences while encountering the ‘other’ land/people in their stories and drawings. In Strange Lines, two people write letters to each other. They write about themselves, their lives, their cities and their nations. They draw their bodies and imagine the other’s. And then, they meet. The project seeks to play with the young art of graphic novel, the theatricality in drawing and ways in which drawing and theatre can come together to present notions of ‘home and away’, ‘nativity and foreignness’. Some stories from the book are adapted to form the narrative for the production, while others are improvised from the performers’ own lives. 

Profile of the Director-Amitesh Grover
Performance Maker, New Media Artist and pedagogue, National School of Drama (India) alumnus Amitesh Grover has created 15 Performances and Mixed-media Installations, which have taken a total of 90 shows across 6 countries. Having completed his MA (Performance Arts) from University of Arts London, UK in 2006, he went on to focus on exploring the live interface between the body and media in performance. His work has been shown in Switzerland, U.K., China, Romania, Oman and India. He is the recipient of numerous awards including YCE Creative Entrepreneur Award nomination (2010), SNA (Bismillah Khan) National Award for Theatre Direction (2009), BC Theatre Sutra Award (2009), was awarded a Pro Helvetia Artists Residency in Switzerland ( 2008) and received a Charles Wallace Scholarship (2005). He has also been on the jury of TheatreSpektakel’08. At present, he lectures at National School of Drama, India and is a freelance artist. His work, thoughts and reviews are available online at amiteshgrover.blogspot.com 

Profile of Swiss actress Julia Perazzini
Julia Perazzini is a Swiss a actress, who was born and lives in Lausanne, Switzerland. She graduated in 2006 from the « Manufacture », the National School of Theater in Lausanne. She has worked with Denis Maillefer and his company « Theatre en Flammes » and with musician Polar in Geneva, for the international festival « La Bâtie ». Julia has also worked with Mathieu Bertholet, a young Swiss writer and director and with director Isabelle Pousseur from Brussels, Belgium. Currently, Julia is developing a more personal work with Company Eponyme, based in Lausanne, who makes their own collective political creations. She continues to dance for the concerts of Swiss electro music group « Larytta » for whom she created a duo of dance performances in 2007.

Julia Perazzini performed for the first time in India in, January 2009. She was part of the cast of Denis Maillefer’s production « For the first time » that was part of National School of Drama’s Bharat Rang Mahotsav. This play, created first in Geneva was recreated in Delhi and Gurgaon in English, Hindï and French with Indian and Swiss actors. Julia returned to India once again in January 2011 to perform at the Bharat Rang Mahotsav for the second time. She shared the stage with Amit Saxena in « Strange Lines », a multimedia theatre performance in English, directed by Amitesh Grover.

A versatile actress, Julia has also acted in several short films, like « La Délogeuse » (Golden Leopardino in the International film festival of Locarno 2008) and has played the main character in a feature film, directed by Lionnel Baier, a Swiss movie director. She has just completed the shooting of a sitcom for the Swiss Television (TSR), 13 episodes, in which she plays a petty criminal, the main female character.