Curriculum Vitae Of Heisnam Kanhailal

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Heisnam Kanhailal

Date of Birth : 17th January, 1941
Place of Birth : Keisamthong Thangjam Leirak, Imphal.
Address : Meitei Langol, Laimanai, Lamphel,Imphal (Manipur) - 795001
Educational Qualification : Passed Matriculation in 1959.
Parents' Name : Father -(L) H. Pishak Singh Mother-(L) H. (O) Bidhumukhi Devi

BACKGROUND

Kanhailal founded Kalakshetra Manipur in 1969. Since then he has been continuing experiment with tradition for an alternate theatre. He worked with Badal Sircar in 1973. However, he didn't sacrifice his own individuality. In the process his alternative theatre could be indentified with the live theatre that he ultimately conceived as the 'theatre of the earth'. In this process of theatre making Heisnam Sabitri (wife in his personal life) became his major collaborator who manifested as a world class actress.

The ideal collaboration of a director and an actor could ultimately succeed in analysis of whatever artistically accomplished, and formulate into an individualized system of theatre making that remains indigenous throughout.

His major and remarkable creations are:
o TAMNALAI (1972).
o KABUI KEIOIBA (1973),
o IMPHAL '73 (1974).
o PEBET (1975).
o HURANBAGI ESHEI (1977),
o LAIGI MACHASINGA (1978).
o MRITYU SHWOR (1984).
o MEMOIRS OF AFRICA (1985),
o RASHOMON (1987),
o MIGI SARANG (1991).
o KARNA (1997),
o DRAUPADI (2000),
o NUPI (2002),
o DAKGHAR OF TAGORE (2006).
o UCHEK LANGMEIDONG (2008),
o SHADOWING THE WILD WOMAN (2011) etc.

He did also experiment to locate theatre in the people of different social strata. Remarkable experiments were: NUPI LAN (women's war against British) in 1978 with 100 market women of Imphal in an open air environment. Again. SANJENNAHA (cowherd) in 1979 with villagers at Umathel, a remote village in South Manipur. He worked with the tribals (Paite community) in Churachandpur district and produced THANGHOU LEH LIANDOU in 1980. He groomed up Rabha tribal youths of Assam. His followers like Sukracharjyo Rabha and Rayanti Rabha have been awarded Yuba Puraskar by Central Sangeet Natak Akademi. Delhi. He also groomed up Tripuri tribals of Tripura.

WORKSHOP & EXPOSITION

He has conducted around 15 major workshops in the last twenty years for the actors from different cultural backgrounds in the country. The workshops so far conducted were particularly concentrated on his actor training system for live theatre. Workshops were organized nationally and regionally in different locations both city and rural as sponsored by National School of Drama and other cultural institutions/agencies. Since last ten years he and Sabitri have been conducting workshops for the second year students of NSD every year on his system of acting.

He conducted short term programmes on exposition of his system particularly for the young practitioners and academics. He could draw attention of young research scholars of the country and their participation in the practice thereof. He is the only theatre practitioner in the country on whose work young research scholars have been working for their ML Phils and Ph. Ds particularly from JNU. Jamia Milia Islamia, Assam University. Hydrabad University, Manipur University, Pondichery University. Bombay IIT, so on. Since 2012 he has been training young practitioners from France, Sweden, America. South Africa, etc.

TRAVEL

He has been extensively touring with his plays in both cities and rural areas in the country . He had shown around hundred (100) shows so far in different parts of the country.

In abroad, he toured with his plays, PEBET' and MEMOIRS OF AFRICA at Tokyo, Toga and Ningata as sponsored by Japan Performing Arts Centre in 1987. As sponsored by ICCR, New Delhi participated in the 3rd Cairo International Festival of Experimental Theatre with his play, MIGI SARANG (Human Cage) in 1991 at Cairo. The play was assessed as one of the best six of the festival and Heisnam Sabitri in her role of Thambal won the Best Actress Award of the panel of critics. Participated with NUPI in the first Asian Contemporary Theatre Festival at Singapore in 2002.

FILM

He produced a short theatre film based on his play. PEBET, in 1985. The film secured the Best Short Fiction Film in the International Short Film Festival held at Calcutta in 1985 and also shown in Panorama section of the International Film Festival of India at New Delhi in 1985.

RESEARCH & FELLOWSHIPS

He was awarded a research project by Ford Foundation for 3 years in 1985-87. Jawaharlal Nehru National Fellowship in 1990-91 and Emeritus Fellowship in 1998-99. Awarded a research project by Theatre works. Singapore to study performance tradition in Indonesia and Malaysia in 2002.

Heisnam Kanhailal

AWARD

He is recipients of:
a. Manipur State Kala Akademi Award for theatre in 1982,
b. Kendriya Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for direction for the year, 1985, the first ever awardee
of SNA in the North East in the field of modern theatre.
c. NATYA RATNA in 1997 by Manipuri Sahitya Parishad,
d. Padma Shri in 2003.
e. Sangeet Natak Akademi Fellow 2011.
f. Tanveer Award of Pune in 2011
g. Kamal Kumari National Award in 2011.
h. Kalidas Saman 2012-13.
i. META Life Time Achievement Award 2015.
j. Padma Bhusan in 2016.

BOOKS ON HIM AND BY HIM

Theatre of Kanhailal - Pebet & Memoirs of Africa was written by Rustom Bharucha an American trained scholar and director and published by the Seagul Books. Calcutta in 1990. A book by Kanhailal entitled Theatre for the Ritual of Suffering was published by him in 1997. A new book entitled Theatre of the Earth is published by Seagul Books, Kolkata, London, New York. An article, "Ritual Theatre" was published as one of the chapters in an anthology, THEATRE IN THEORY 1900-2000 by Blackwell Publishing House of America in 2007.

Article on Sabitri Heisnam : Embodying Resistance written by him was published in the Act of Becoming published by National School of Drama, New Delhi in 2013.

Heisnam Kanhailal left for the heavenly abode on October 06 2016

*** Heisnam Kanhailal left for the heavenly abode on October 06 2016