Budhan Theatre in U.S.?

[gal...@mcdaniel.edu]

Dear Susan and Elizabeth (cc: Friends ...)

I'm writing to you two to see whether our Asian Studies and Theatre Arts programs would be interested in an event.

I don't think that either of you met Roxy Gagdekar when he was on our campus.  Roxy is one of the founding members of Budhan Theatre, about which you can learn something here - http://budhantheatre.org/ - and here - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hj23bEDJztk.  Budhan Theatre is also the subject of the film "Please Don't Beat Me, Sir!" which won a major award from the Society for Visual Anthropology last fall and which we showed on campus in December.

I would like to explore the possibility of bringing a small Budhan troupe to campus, in conjunction with other universities and colleges in North America (hence this message is copied to Friends of Budhan Theatre, which should include the principals in India).  I have talked with both Roxy and his colleague Dakxin about this, and they would be very interested in this opportunity.

Roxy suggested that a reasonable small group would consist of him, Dakxin, an actress named Kalpana (Roxy's wife, actually), and two other people.  They could do a performance or two, talk on campus about issues pertaining to denotified tribes and other issues in India (Roxy is a reporter; Dakxin is a filmmaker; at the moment I've forgotten what Kalpana is doing), and do a theatre and music workshop.  This might also be an opportunity to join together with the local south Asian community, inasmuch as Roxy has told me that Dr. and Mrs. Rajpara visited or were going to visit Chharanagar, where Budhan Theatre is located, in January.  (I'm sorry, but the first half of my January was so busy that I haven't been able to keep the chronology straight, except to know where I personally was on what days.)

Such a venture would involve a certain amount of planning and coordination with other institutions, which would take time.  As I see it the expenses involved would be these:
- roundtrip airfare from India for the five members of Budhan theatre; this expense could be shared by participating schools;
- transportation on one leg of the journey in the U.S.; we could map out the trip to minimize distances as much as possible; for example, if Budhan was going to be at two schools in Indiana (two may be interested), they could visit those two schools back to back;
- housing and per diem expenses while on campus; and - all important -
- U.S. visas.
It would also be most appropriate to provide some funds to Budhan Theatre in recognition of their contributions, perhaps through vimukta.org, but that's a discussion that needs to be had.

For your reference, roundtrip airfare from Ahmedabad to Washington, DC, for next fall is currently running about $1250-$1450.  I doubt that it will get any cheaper.  But of course we shouldn't put this on too short a time schedule.  We would need to coordinate with people elsewhere, and we will want the members of Budhan to be able to procure the necessary visas for the U.S. and, if a Friend of Budhan in Toronto can arrange it, for Canada as well.  So perhaps we should tentatively be thinking of sometime in spring 2013 for this event?

In any case, please let me know if this is something that you think we should pursue for McDaniel College and if so, how we might stitch together the needed funds locally.  If five institutions are involved, we would be responsible for international airfare for one theatre member, transportation for the group to someplace in the U.S. (my contacts are on the east coast and in the Midwest), housing and per diem expenses, and one U.S. visa.

If you're interested, I'm willing to see if we can get others involved.  If not, well, it's still a good idea and maybe other Friends will want to take it up.  In any case, I don't think McDaniel is in a position to do this without cooperating with other institutions - nor do I think it would be good for members of Budhan to fly all this way just to visit us.

Thanks for thinking about this,  Please do let me know what the results of your reflections are.

Greg