The Brown Men Workshops are a theatre and performance workshop series from October to December 2024 focused on helping participants explore body, story, family and community through a workshop and learning experience.
What can we uncover if we dive deep into our personal stories, our connections to our body and to make theatre and art from that place of emotion, family and community?
What narratives will we discover that bring us together or show us how different we are?
What new magic could be created together with the others in the room?
How can an actor show up fully here and in future works when they no longer have to hide behind a wall they didn’t even realise was there?
Requirements are: Ages 18 and above, male identifying, of Malaysian Indian descent (includes those of mixed heritage), any level of prior acting experience, based in Klang Valley and a willingness to learn + explore + play.
Potential participants are able to choose to drop in for specific modules or be a cohort participant and attend all modules/workshops.
There will be an online interview conducted before you can be considered for these workshops. More information on this will be shared upon filling of the form.
Important Timelines:
Open Call: Thursday, 3rd October – Friday, 11th October 2024
(Online) Video Interviews: Sunday, 6th October – Monday, 14th October 2024
(Physical) Workshop Sessions: October – December 2024 (Held on weekends with exact dates and times to finalised with the participants)
Workshop Modules (Conducted in English)
Module 1: Our Fathers/Appas (4 Hours Weekend Workshop in October)
Module 2: Our Mothers/Ammas (4 Hours Weekend Workshop in November)
Module 3: Masculinity and Patriarchy (4 Hours Weekend Workshop in November)
Module 4: The Divine Feminine (4 Hours Weekend Workshop in December)
Module 5: Body and Sexuality (4 Hours Weekend Workshop in December)
Cost
RM150 per Module (for drop in participants)
RM500 for all 5 Modules (for cohort participants)
About the Facilitator
DHINESHA KARTHIGESU (He/They) is a multi-disciplinary storyteller, theatre maker and coach. As a Malaysian Indian artist of Tamil and Malayalee descent, his work currently explores queerness, migration, masculinity and identity. Dhinesha and his work has been featured at schools, universities, festivals and on platforms like Arts Equator, HowlRound Theatre Commons, Vice India and Vice Asia. He has also been on multiple podcasts and BFM radio segments.
In 2021, his theatre play RAVAYANA beat a thousand other global entries to be selected as part of a play development programme run by the New York theatre collective The Playwrights Realm. In 2023, his devised theatre production They All Die At The End (TADATE) premiered in KL and featured an all Indian male ensemble, emerging as one of CloudJoi’s Top 10 Bestselling Shows of 2023. TADATE was also chosen to be part of the Georgetown Festival 2024 and premiered in Penang in July.
Dhinesha is one of the co founders of the Tulis Group, a playwright focused Malaysian theatre collective and also one of the co founders of 100DP, a writing workshop series focused on generative feedback structures. He is also an alumni of Theatresauce’s Emerging Directors Lab of 2020-2022 and is currently a Fellow in Singapore for T:> Works’s Artistic Directors Academy for 2024/2025.
At the end of 2023, Dhinesha became the newly appointed Artistic Director for Theatresauce, a KL based theatre company focused on telling edgy, urban Malaysian stories. Under his leadership, the company will now further focus on championing minority and underrepresented Malaysian stories.
Please Take Note
The workshops will be designed as an inclusive, open and welcoming space for everyone to explore themselves, their histories and their stories. You will need to work with and alongside others. Please do take note of this before signing up and indicating your interest.
Please also take note that this space is not intended to be therapeutic or a form of healing or replace the work with a psychologist/psychiatrist. These workshops are not recommended for potential participants with past unresolved histories of trauma or abuse involving the topics and modules.
Any and all enquiries and questions can be sent to the facilitator Dhinesha Karthigesu at [email protected].
The Open Call for Expressions of Interest closes at 11:59PM, Friday 11th October 2024
Event Dates
Venue
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