Abhinay School of Performing Arts is a nonprofit

charity school Charity schools, sometimes called blue coat schools, or simply the Blue School, were significant in the history of education in England. They were built and maintained in various parishes by the voluntary contributions of the inhabitants to ...

based in Sydney, Australia which was founded in 2009 to promote art and

culture Culture () is an umbrella term which encompasses the social behavior, institutions, and norms found in human societies, as well as the knowledge, beliefs, arts, laws, customs, capabilities, and habits of the individuals in these groups ...

from the

Indian subcontinent The Indian subcontinent is a list of the physiographic regions of the world, physiographical region in United Nations geoscheme for Asia#Southern Asia, Southern Asia. It is situated on the Indian Plate, projecting southwards into the Indian O ...

in Australia. As of 2013 the school reported having trained over 200 people in dance and

theatre arts Theatre or theater is a collaborative form of performing art that uses live performers, usually actors or actresses, to present the experience of a real or imagined event before a live audience in a specific place, often a stage. The perform ...

. Abhinay means "the art of performing" in

Sanskrit Sanskrit (; attributively , ; nominally , , ) is a classical language belonging to the Indo-Aryan branch of the Indo-European languages. It arose in South Asia after its predecessor languages had diffused there from the northwest in the late ...

. Playwright Alex Broun has conducted play-writing workshops with the school for the Indian community, and the school takes part in the yearly Short and Sweet festival he is associated with. The school's president and artistic director is Aishveryaa Nidhi. Acting workshops focus on dialogue delivery, speech analysis, and body language. Abhinay promotes

multiculturalism The term multiculturalism has a range of meanings within the contexts of sociology, political philosophy, and colloquial use. In sociology and in everyday usage, it is a synonym for " ethnic pluralism", with the two terms often used interchang ...

, and has collaborated with the

Hurstville Hurstville is a suburb in Southern Sydney, New South Wales, Australia. It is 16 kilometres south of the Sydney CBD and is part of the St George area. Hurstville is the administrative centre of the local government area of the Georges Riv ...

City Council to increase community participation. The school also promotes the

Hindi Hindi ( Devanāgarī: or , ), or more precisely Modern Standard Hindi (Devanagari: ), is an Indo-Aryan language spoken chiefly in the Hindi Belt region encompassing parts of northern, central, eastern, and western India. Hindi has been ...

language through instructional classes and live performances.

Performances

The school oversees many theater productions written by Indian and non-Indian writers but specialises in promoting and nurturing Hindi language. Each year, the school holds a festival dedicated to 10-minute plays in Hindi to celebrate Hindi Diwas."Indradhanush – Australian collection of Hindi Plays". The festival was created after a playwriting workshop with Broun at the Shopfront Theatre. The collection features student-written plays, which were later translated to Hindi for the festival. The plays allude to contemporary, social, emotional and political issues. From plays written during the workshop, 'Quarantine' written by Neena Badhawar, directed by

Arvind Gaur Arvind Gaur is an Indian theatre director known for innovative, socially and politically relevant plays in India. Gaur's plays are contemporary and thought-provoking, connecting intimate personal spheres of existence to larger social politica ...

, starring Aishveryaa Nidhi and Ishwak Singh was Abhinay School's first entry as an Independent Theatre Company for the inaugural

New Delhi New Delhi (, , ''Naī Dillī'') is the capital of India and a part of the National Capital Territory of Delhi (NCT). New Delhi is the seat of all three branches of the government of India, hosting the Rashtrapati Bhavan, Parliament Ho ...

Short and Sweet (festival) in 2010. Abhinay was one of the performance groups who collaborated with the Sydney Theatre Company to adapt

John Birmingham John Birmingham (born 7 August 1964) is a British-born Australian author, known for the 1994 memoir ''He Died with a Felafel in His Hand'', and his ''Axis of Time'' trilogy. Early life and education Birmingham was born in Liverpool, United ...

's 1999 book ''Leviathan'' to the stage in 2010.

References

External links

* {{authority control Schools of the performing arts in Australia Dance schools in Australia Theatre companies in Australia Non-profit organisations based in New South Wales Charities based in Australia Hindi-language education Hindi theatre