Excelsior Correspondent
Born on 25th of December 1960 in a hilly village, Bakkal ,Distt. Reasi, of J&K which is a repository of traditional performing arts had an indelible impact on his early childhood where he grew up singing and dancing with traditional performers. His father Hari Saran Thakur being a patron of traditional performers represented the State at many national events, inspired young artist further. After completing his primary education in his village, he was shifted to Jyotipuram (Reasi) town where he studied till 12th standard. He joined an evening group and started assisting them in all their allied jobs including, publicity, back-stage work, house management etc., At such a tender age he had developed the confidence to form a group with the help of his six friends ‘Seven Stars’ and staged plays like ‘Sabhya Saanp’ and ‘Kanyadaan’. Later he shifted to Jammu and graduated in Business Management and Economics from MAM college, during this period he started writing for Radio Kashmir, Jammu and presented talks, short stories, poetry, and short plays in their Yuva-Vani service. He continued acting, directing and writing plays for the inter-collage competitions and despite his ultimate ambition to do post graduation in dramatics, he was forced to join LLB (professional) to fulfill his parental aspiration. Three years in the University turned out to be a turning point in his career where in quest of achieving excellence he strived hard, contributed in the renaissance and brought top honours in Dramatics for University of Jammu in Zonal and National events.
To avoid unnecessary interference and to have the creative liberty he with the help of his theatre colleagues established ‘Natrang’ in 1983.In the first year of the inception of Natrang he surprised everyone by winning the State Academy award for best production ‘Chauraha’ directed by him. With in a short span of time he was able to strengthen Natrang by producing and directing successful plays like ‘Neeli Jheel’ ‘Nanhen Kandhey Nanhen Pair’ ‘Singhasan Khali Hai’ and ‘Rang Nagri’. In 1984-85 he wrote two plays ‘Ek Sangharsh Ka Ant’ and ‘Yeh Laash Kiski Hai’, the later won best short play award in many All-India play competitions for the plays written and directed by him. By this time he had already made his presence felt in Punjab, Himachal and Haryana by winning best director awards in the All-India cultural competitions. In the same year central Sangeet Natak Akademi, New Delhi selected his play ‘Kaun Nachaye Naach’ for the North Zone theatre festival held at Chandigarh. Though he established himself as creative and innovative director but could not make it to the National festival. This gave a new turn to his theatre work and started exploring new possibilities in the themes rooted in his own soil and the language. Interestingly he had not done any play in Dogri till 1986, though he directed plays in varied forms and themes and won State Academy awards for the year 1983, 1984, 1985, and 1986. The first Dogri play ‘Bawa Jitto’ surprised everyone at the North Zone Theatre Festival at Kurukshetra organised by Central Sangeet Natak Akademi and was selected for National Theatre festival, New Delhi.
In 1989 in search of exploring new alternatives to the set innovative conventions of theatre, he dared to experiment with Manu Bhandari’s popular novel ‘Mahabhoj’. The idea was to transform the text into images, using actors bodies to have better and deeper communication across language barriers. Realizing the actor’s potential, he has been advocating that in most of the conventions their creative vocal and physical resources are not being utilized to the fullest. But unfortunately his lead actors deserted him for not being convinced with his quest of new methodology. He mounted ‘Mahabhoj’ with almost new actors and resultant work was declared best in the North zone and was selected for National theatre festival, 1990.
With a view to extend the horizon of Natrang’s work and also to introduce young crop of actors he started two new annual projects ‘Theatre Camp’ for freshers in 1989 and Children’s Summer School in 1990. Theatre Camp used to be a residential production oriented training programme and brought much successful plays like Badal Sarcar’s ‘Bhoma’ ‘Ghera’ based on Brecht’s ‘Caucasian Chalk Circle’ and Mahesh Elkunchwar’s ‘Holi’.
In 1992 for his outstanding contribution to theatre he received the National ‘Sanskriti Award’ for theatre which is given to one theatre person in three years. Same year he got The Ford Foundation (USA) Grant Award for his work ‘Search for a new Theatre language’. He established a theatre laboratory and started experimenting on the further exploration of his theatre of images, a visual poetry which not only transcends language barriers but also heightens the multi-dimensional theatrical impact. His magical images created a new language, which have not only the poetic sensibility but universality too.
In the process of the expansion of Natrang’s jurisdiction and the activities he established an equipped Studio Theatre, a Resource centre and a Rural touring theatre wing which started staging plays based on the highly socially relevant themes. He wrote plays like ‘Suno Eh Kahani’, Aaj Ki Aurat’ ‘Is Gran Gi Surg Banai Lo’ ‘Anpaden Da Hall’ ‘Jalo Khala’ ‘Mere Bi Ehen Kish Khaab’ and ‘Aag’ which were staged in 240 remote villages of J&K including in the most inaccessible areas of Udhampur, Doda, Rajouri and Poonch districts to shape up the rural minds through the magical power of theatre.
In 1995 he was assigned the task of reviving the cultural life of the troubled state of Jammu and Kashmir and he joined the state Govt. as Secretary of Jammu and Kashmir Academy of Art Culture and Languages- an organisation of 317 employees responsible for the development of art, culture, languages, literature, arts education of the state.
After quitting the job of Secretary J&K Academy of Art Culture and languages in the October 2003, he started giving full-time to his ultimate passion theatre and introduced two new projects in Natrang.
In 2006, recognizing the importance of Balwant Thakur’s contribution to Indian Theatre, Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Akademi organized a retrospective of Balwant Thakur featuring five best plays written and directed by him with the title ‘Theatre Days with Balwant Thakur at Tagore Theatre, Chandigarh.
With the introduction of this new wing in Natrang, the state of J&K witnessed the beginning of new era of professional presentations based on the diverse variety of the performing art traditions of the region. This project touched the ultimate heights when Jammites witnessed ‘Jammu Festival-2007’ at mini Stadium Parade Jammu on a multi-level stage featuring 500 artists demonstrating the cultural strengths before an audience of over 20,000 people. This followed series of such presentations like ‘Rangla Jammu’, ‘Bhadarwah Festival’, ‘J&K Utsav’, ‘Jammu Mega Cultural Show’ ‘Celebrating diversity’. Taking a step ahead, he scripted and devised two major travelling open-air theatre shows ‘Kahani Hamari’ and ‘Choona Hai Aasmaan’ addressing the issues of larger public interest and staged at all the district headquarters of the state for lacs of audiences. Rooted in the cultural soil of the state these plays played the role of a catalyst by bringing a new cultural renaissance in the region and inspired many smaller groups to follow such initiatives. This was followed by his mission ‘Theatre for Peace’ which was an eye-opener for all those who never recognized the role of arts and culture in the state of Jammu and Kashmir and ever undermined its utility and relevence.
He gave a new dimension to the age old festivity ‘Jhiri Mela’ which is organized annually to pay obeisance to a farmer hero ‘Bawa Jitto’. In 2005 Balwant Thakur brought live before an audience of over 50,000, the performance on the life of legendary folk hero Bawa Jitto using the live performance supported by video projections on a huge open-air stage.
In 2009 he took the Dogri to International heights by making it to four theatre festival held in Russia, Germany, Hungary and Poland with his highly acclaimed Dogri play ‘Ghumayee’.
His initiative of the revival of age-old theatre tradition of Kashmir ‘Bhand Pather’ is recognized as one of his major contributions to Indian Theatre. In the year 2010 he took a major initiative to revive the dying cultural tradition of Kashmir. Involving over 1000 traditional Bhand Pather performers, Balwant Thakur with the help of eminent playwright Moti Lal Kemmu brought together twenty prominent Bhand Pather groups spread over the entire length and breadth of Kashmir Valley and trained them in new performatic idiom by infusing in them the latest developed techniques of play scripting, production and direction. The resultant work witnessed 40 new productions in Bhand Pather style which vibrated the entire Kashmir Valley through new innovations and attracted huge crowds. This initiative of Balwant Thakur not only revived the dying theatre tradition but is also seen as a major community mobilization effort which saw the participation of over two lac audiences.
For his most outstanding contribution he received the highest Indian honour in performing arts i.e, Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for direction in theatre in 1999. He also has the distinction of having received All India Citizen Award for culture (1994), ‘Gurushree’ (1995) ‘Abhinayak Samman’ (1996), ‘Sapatrishi Samman’ (2001), ‘Kala Nidhi’ (2004), ‘Best Director Award Doordarshan Theatre festival’ (2005), and ‘Dogra Rattan’ (2006), Punjab Arts Council Honor-2007, Dogri Sanstha Award-2010. Maharaja Gulab Singh Memorial Award 2011, Rabindra Nath Tagore Award 2011, Naksha Samman-2011 For electronic media he directed two serials ‘Virasat’ and ‘Kashmir Live’ for Kashir Channel of Doordarshan.
Currently heading, Natrang Jammu, which has the mission to become the ultimate destination of artists, writers, intellectuals and art lovers by making it one of the most happening place in the country. The institution is in the process of creating a theatre campus in Jammu housing a Theatre, Open-air theatre, workshop studios and a hostel. In addition to this he is working on a research project ‘Origin and Development of Dogri Theatre’ supported by Department of Culture, Govt. of India.
Everybody who works sincerely and thoughtfully in the theatre adds something, however small, to the art: theatre is for man, not man for theatre: through it he expresses his humanity, his thought, and his identity.
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