PINK GAJAH THEATRE
ABOUT
Our theatre focuses on the unconventional. Hence our name - Pink Gajah - a play on the white elephant in the room. We enjoy putting up subjects on stage which are not often thought about by mass society.
Pink Gajah believes in the potency of theatre-making. At the theatre, people gather, stop, and soak in a show. For an hour or two, the audience is suspended in time as they bear witness to a performance. They may take home messages or lessons that change their lives forever, or maybe they wouldn't. Either way, theatre is cathartic, healing and meditative.
At Pink Gajah, we hope to trigger thought and emotion in our audiences in order for them to think about deep issues and subjects.
A Pink Gajah work is always questioning, always questing. We are on a journey to examine the deeper emotional and intellectual issues in society, and tell stories that move humanity at its core. The heart of our work is the social structure of a human being: the way we interact with society and the environment. Our priority is not to entertain you. Our priority is to resonate.
THE TEAM
Artistic Director
Sharda Harrison is the founder of Pink Gajah Theatre. She creates and designs visceral and team-building driven movement and drama programs for schools, institutions and companies. She runs all wings of Pink Gajah Theatre and has a strong passion for creating socially aware art for theatre and communities. She performs for the theatre both locally and internationally and enjoys collaborating with artists of all ages and backgrounds.
Producer and Resident Media Artist
Sean Harrison is the co-founder of Pink Gajah Theatre. His speciality is in film and production receiving his training from the Institute of Sound Audio Engineering ( SAE Singapore) Sean creates all the media for our Pink Gajah Productions. He offers film and projection as theatre workshops for schools and communities focussed on fusing film and theatre. He also has a passion in wildlife documentary making. And, rats.
Head Story Teller
Ajuntha Anwari is the education and outreach manager at Pink Gajah Theatre. Though, her main work is in plants and food nutrition. While managing our trainers and being the go to contact for Schools and communities, Ajuntha gives talks on plant food medicines, teaches men and women about herbal tonics and offers as part of our Education Green Wing, gardening workshops for both children and teenagers.
Resident Sound Artist
Lim Mei Yin loves sound. And coffee. But she loves designing sound more and has been our resident sound designer for our company since it’s inception in 2013. She creates stunning soundscapes based on imagery, ritual, research and text. She runs her own company, BackButton Media where she has another life filming and editing weddings. We hope she has her own wedding coming soon!
EDUCATION
Our education wing is designed to awaken the student. How?
By empowered learning - using tools in the body, speech and mind to facilitate better attentiveness in and outside of class. Our programs employ body techniques to accelerate the learning process. Each session is carefully structured to rigorous and enjoyable, stimulating physically and mentally.
We have designed three stock programs: Devising and Theatre, Drama 101 as well as Primal. We also customise programs to suit the need of your students focusing on text work, acting work and/or physical theatre.
To us, every student has the capability to become effective learners, as well as expressive individuals with confidence and leadership qualities.
THEATRE
MAN MADE GOD - July 2013
WHY DO WE DO WHAT WE DO - December 2014
RIBCAGE by Andrew Sutherland - April 2015
SMOKER'S SOLILOQUY - May 2015
BI(CARA) - January 2016
UNSEEN CONSTELLATIONS by Alecia Neo - April 2016
TEMUAN (THE MEETING) - Perth, 2017 Fringe Festival
HAYAT - 2018 M1 Fringe Festival
WORKSHOPS
I'PRIMAL BREATH:PRESENCE:PLAY
FEE: $30.00 (adult) / $80.00 for 3 sessions
$20.00 (student) / $50.00 for 3 sessions
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Primal is about tapping back into your bodies instinct through breathing exercises, awareness exercises and lastly, exercises that encourage the individual to go back to playing through improvisation of the body.
All training is based on a range of physical theatre methodologies. The training is evocative and explosive is nature as much as it is introspective and spiritual. These workshops are designed to take a look at how we are living in our current state while picking up tools to awaken our inner ' primality ' to awaken ourselves to perform at 100 percent in our body.
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Primal Breath
2 hours of breathing techniques and slowing down into experiencing the body in a calm way. A moving meditation.
Primal Presence
Awaken the body into becoming present. 2 hours if dynamic exercises that are physical and explosive. Martial Arts and physical theatre approaches are used to send the body into being alive in the present moment.
Primal Play
Come home to the inner child and spend time playing with us through experiential exercises that encourage the child to come alive. Abandon your ego and feel weightless and silly as we dance contact improvisation and go through a spiritual journey back into mother's womb.
Trainer: Sharda Harrison
CLASSES
I'Pink Gajah Theatre Is now offering our Acting Classes, called 'Being'
'Each class is designed to get the student to resonate with the 'being' of their state and how to be private in a public environment.
Theses classes will tap on an unconventional acting training style that is formulated by actor and arts educator, Sharda Harrison, Artistic Director of Pink Gajah Theatre.
Through 4 exciting and dynamic terms, our acting students will learn how to 'be' in each scene as well as use movement and physicalisation to create range in scene work, improvisation work as well as monologues.
Year Long Syllabus :
Term 1
FEB 3 - March 10th ( 6 weeks )
10am to 12pm
$300.00
Being
Exercises centred around presence
Stanislavsky exercises that focus on actor in the present moment
Playing the dumb game based on instinct and response
Building on Presence Through the introduction of Text
Selection of Text
Merging text and the character
Physical gestures through acting
Scene work and practice
Present scene work before March break
Term 2
April 7- June 9 ( 12 weeks )
10am to 12pm
$480.00
Animal Language
Exploration of various animal forms and evolving them into improvisations as human characters
Primality and Intuition
Monologue work
Character development
Playing with the circumstances we are given with our monologues and unravelling character, object and material.
Showcase of work before the June break
Term 3
July 7th -Sep 22 (12 weeks)
10 am -12pm
$480.00
Mask Work
Learning and discovering how the body moves and speaks to us.
Solos and duologues : Mask
Conversations with the self and the atmosphere
Conversations with the other
Turning these into Scene work
Sept: Silent Scenes
Learning how to create scenes in silence, only using the body as a tool and the material and non tangible material world, as vocabulary to build upon.
Showcase before the Sept Break
Term 4
13th October - 15 Dec ( 10 weeks )
10 am -12 pm
$400.00
Element Work
How to incorporate wind, earth, fire and air into characters
Shakespeare Character Scene Work incorporating element work
Exploration and Sharing Of scenes as Presentations
To book a place please email :
contact@pinkgajahtheatre. com
Maximum participants: 10 per class.
Venue : 393 joo Chiat Place (428039)
About the trainer:
Sharda Harrison is the Artistic director of Pink Gajah Theatre. She has coached and trained a variety of individuals for the stage, both performers and non performers. She teaches modules on a part time basis for both LASALLE COLLEGE OF THE ARTS AND NANYANG ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS. The ongoing module she teaches at LASALLE is with the diploma in performing arts students, is called, TALKING BODIES, which is a devised movement theatre module encouraging students to learn how to express thoughts and ideas through the body. She has been given the opportunity to coach both her Pink Gajah students and Nafa students on audition preparation as well as devising theatre.
She is currently teaching a MASTER CLASS OF DEVISING for the SINGAPORE AMERICAN SCHOOL in Jan 2019. She is also pursuing her Masters in Arts pedagogy and Practice in 2019 with Lasalle College of the arts. Besides coaching and training, Sharda is a theatre actress and theatre maker and has worked with a wide range of local theatre companies as well as having been given the opportunity to meet and collaborate with theatre artists internationally. easy.
CONTACT US
OPENING HOURS:
Mon - Fri: 7am - 10pm
Saturday: 8am - 10pm
Sunday: 8am - 11pm