'Tiatr will be 120 years old this April' DOLCY D’CRUZ
As every institution, the Tiatr Academy of Goa ( TAG) has its share of decision making and has successfully worked out schemes that help the younger and older generation of tiatrists. Giving a brief history of the academy, Tomazinho Cardozo, President of TAG says, “ This demand to form an academy was put forward by followers of Konkani in Roman script. When demanding for Konkani as the official language, there was equal status for Konkani in Roman script and Devnagiri script. Now since Konkani is mostly written in Devnagiri script, we put forward 13 demands which included changing the name of the indoor auditorium in Ravindra Bhavan as Joao Agostinho Hall which has been done. A cultural policy was implemented whose Chairman was Dr Nandakumar Kamat. He asked me to give inputs about tiatr for the cultural policy. The Chief Minister, Digambar Kamat showed great interest as he felt that tiatr was the most dramatic art form of Goa and yet it was not given due respect. Though I am not beneficial to the CM in his political life in any way, he selected me as the President of the academy and formed the Tiatr Academy of Goa.”
Tiatrs have been performed at different levels in Goa. What brought about an academy after all these years? Tomazinho answers, “ Tiatr will be 120 years old on April 17, 2012 and so far tiatrs were being organised by dramatic troupes with no financial support by the government. It was done completely on their cost and the commercial success where there is no chance for experimentation with the form but just giving people what they want to watch. Through the institution, we bring up the standard of tiatr so that the tiatrists can experiment with the form and take it to the next level. The government has given TAG one crore, eight lakhs rupees to start the academy and a separate amount to start a library. A ten member committee was selected which in turn elected a ten member General Council who unitedly elected the Vice President. An eight member executive board was formed to bring functional structure. Once the entire committee was formed, 36 schemes were decided upon for each section of tiatr and music.”
Each schemes plays an important role towards preserving tiatr and since the academy was formed more efforts were made to get information for aging tiatrists. “There was no oral documentation of tiatrs as once the tiatr was performed the script would be misplaced. Through the scheme ‘ oral documentation of history of tiatr’ we meet and interview aging tiatrists on video. They have a lot of information which would be lost if not documented. There is a scheme of ‘ documentation of tiatr through research work’ through which three books have been released.
One book ‘ Konkani Gramophone Records’, brings out the importance behind the recording of Konkani songs on vinyl records right from the first song. ‘Mirmirancho Mog’ sang by Joao Agostinho in 1910 to the last song recorded in 1983.”
Tiatr is a unique form of drama enjoyed by a huge population in Goa. TAG is trying to preserve the true form of tiatr. “ Our aim is to preserve the form of tiatr as it has music but it is not a musical, it has prose but it is not like most English or Marathi plays. The popular form of tiatr has 6- 7 acts where each act has four small songs, comedy linked with the story, songs in the form of solos, duets, trios and quartets which together brings out the uniqueness of tiatr. Tiatr is majority enjoyed by the Catholic community, however over the years, many non- catholics have also joined tiatrs to perform onstage or to handle the technical aspects backstage. ‘Mahanand’, a tiatr brought in a huge number of non- Catholics to watch the tiatr and there are people to witness tiatrs on a regular basis. There is a charm in watching a live performance and I don’t think, tiatr will be affected by CD and VCD productions.”
TAG has a lot more goals to achieve. “ Although tiatr is popular, it has to have a standard and has to go on par with plays in other languages on a national level. TAG is working on a model tiatr and it is making efforts to involve children as they are the future of tiatr,” he concludes.
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