The Departed Dawn

Synopsis

IHC Theatre Festival 2023. The non-verbal play, The Departed Dawn, won in three categories, including Best Choreography and Best Actor in Lead Role (Male) - at META 2023 It was selected as one of the top 10 post-pandemic plays from almost 400 applications at the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards (META) in Delhi.Thoudam Victor Singh is a theatre practitioner based in Mantripukhri in Manipur. He has worked on several theatre productions and has also been a visiting faculty member to the centres of the National School of Drama in Sikkim and Tripura, and at the Manipur University of Culture. He has been the recipient of the Charles Wallace India Trust Scholarship, the Junior Fellowship of the Ministry of Culture and the Serendipity Arts Grant for Theatre. Bimal Subedi, has worked with eminent directors and designers from his country and abroad and has designed and directed more than 15 plays, with a special focus on redefining Nepali theatre.

The production, The Departed Dawn, responds to the global refugee crisis and the plight of the displaced. It is drawn from the forgotten tragedy of the Lhotsampas, in which one lakh Nepali-speaking Bhutanese were driven out of Bhutan in the 1990s. Subedi has worked and written extensively about them. The play is non-verbal and does not name any ethnic group; instead the protagonists belong to the global milieu of homelessness.