IPTA in Raigarh, Chhattisgarh
IPTA Raigarh was established in 1982 during the first state conference of IPTA which was organized by the Raigarh unit in 1982. Since then Raigarh unit has been active and practicing theatre in this small district of Chattisgarh (earlier Madhya Pradesh).
In 1994, when the Golden Jubilee of IPTA was celebrated nationwide, this unit decided to celebrate the Golden Jubilee by organizing a five day theatre festival during the month of December. Although meant to be a one-off event, it was very well received and later on, it was decided to continue this as an annual event. This is how the National Theatre Festival was born and conceived.
The same year IPTA was reorganized and it spread its activities, started imparting training and updating artists by means of organizing theatre workshops every year for youth as well as for children. Since 1995, theatre stalwarts like Arun Pandey, Sanjay Upadhyay, Suman Kumar, Gautam Mazumdar, Devendra Raj Ankur, Ranjeet Kapoor, Akhilesh Khanna, Neeraj Wahal, Praveen Gunjan & Anjana Puri have conducted workshops and trained our artists.
Besides organizing theatre workshops and festivals, IPTA Raigarh started participating in various festivals to showcase their productions in different cities like Delhi, Allahabad, Jabalpur, Raipur, Aurangabad, Bhopal, Patna, Gaya, Sagar, Ratlam among the few.
In 2001, IPTA Raigarh registered itself as ‘IPTA Center for Cultural Resources and Training’ with the Registrar of firms & societies, Government of India.
“IPTA Center for cultural resources & training” has emerged as one of the pro-active theatre groups in Chattisgarh State.
Artistes of the group, including child artistes, have acted in a film ”Chutakan Ki Mahabharat” produced by Children’s Film Society Of India and Directed by Sankalp Meshram, which has bagged the National Award for the Best Children’s Film in 2005, conferred by the Government of India.
IPTA Raigarh also publishes its annual Magazine “Rankarm” which is endorsed by Kendriya Hindi Nideshalaya and is being distributed throughout the country with the help of the same. This magazine has been published annually since 2003.
Read more about this topic: Indian People's Theatre Association