In Their Own Words
"Now because of the prolonged war, in the field of drama there has been a gap, a big void that needs to be filled, and so you have us starting at a school level and our focus is the children. Because of the war there has been no support for them to relax and be free, their freedom has become restricted and so affected by the war in many ways. When they are more relaxed they perform, they take part in a performance like this and become really active in the theatre and performance and in their regular education will be enhanced." Mr. Tevanath, Director of ATM - Interview
" the feelings he expresses should be positive and should give hope to the very people affected by it, when we, when we express such feelings, very genuine feelings, we could expect the people also to join us, to share our feelings and join us in expressing them, it's only the artist who can do this [...] It is an artist who will be sensitive to the suffering and feelings of others, it is an artist who can express himself better than others, it is an artist who had the courage to do it." Actor, Active Theatre Movement - Interview
"We always ensure that we just don't perform and expect the observers to be inactive, we always ensure and see to it that the children take part, so it is common in our performances that the children interact with us, they will be in the audience, we will ask questions, they will interact with us, the will give answers, they will give solutions and they might come onto the stage and all that because it's our way of involving them completely, and to give you an example from the mine risk awareness play that we staged there was a character who is the one who is taking his cow to grazing and there is the minefield and we asked the audience, the children in the audience 'He is going in the minefield, what will happen, what will we do?' and then the children come up on the stage and prevent him and say 'Take him away', so they know, without being prompted, what to do, that is our experience." Actor, Active Theatre Movement - Interview
"It is something very different, away from their normal routine, people from rural areas are used to seeing the same things every day, with this change in their routine to do something completely different it will make them less anxious and fearful when they encounter new things in the future" Audience Members, ATM play - Interview
"This should happen more often, children need more things like this to do with their time, it is very relaxing for them" Audience Members, ATM play - Interview
