Professor teaches theater in India through Fulbright grant

Karen Libman, professor of theater at Grand Valley, spent the early months of 2016 traveling around India to various educational institutions —sharing wisdom about theater concepts and theories, as well as works by famous playwrights, such as William Shakespeare.

Libman's travels were made possible thanks to a prestigious Fulbright grant. The Fulbright Program, sponsored by the U.S. Department of State’s Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, is designed to increase mutual understanding among people in the U.S. and other countries.

"My experience fulfilled the Fulbright mandate of global citizenry — to share my knowledge with, and to learn from others," Libman said.

During the course of five months, Libman conducted lectures, workshops, attended conferences and directed a handful of productions. The majority of her time abroad was spent in the city of Guwahati, which is the largest city of Assam.

Libman said one of the more prominent highlights of her Fulbright experience was conducting a lecture to graduate students at Gauhati University, which Libman explained is one of the preeminent universities in India. 

During this lecture, Libman discussed her work with three Shakespearean plays, including "Richard III," "The Taming of the Shrew," and "All's Well That Ends Well."

"I focused on conceptual techniques used in direction and interpretation to subvert and challenges the problems and issues in each of these texts," Libman said.

Also at Gauhati University, Libman conducted one of her largest workshops focusing on "Medea" with more students than she planned for.

"I was told only about 30 students would attend, but actually more than 80 were there, which I found out when I walked into the space," Libman said. "Despite the circumstances, the students did some amazing work with the choral odes and with image theater. I think that by the end of the workshop, they understood that theater is an embodied experience."

Another of Libman's Fulbright projects included conducting an intensive 20-day theater workshop at B. Borooah College in Guwahati. During the "Mock-Up" workshop, the group of more than 30 students from various majors, participated in games and exercises that actors use in their practice.

These activities were centered around developing the body, voice and mind, and skills necessary to perform on stage, such as concentration, collaboration, listening, sense awareness, creativity and trust. Libman said this workshop was a unique experience for her because the students were willing to try and do anything to make great theater.

"One thing that translates, even if there are language barriers, is the language of the heart. The heart is really where art lives because art is about feeling," Libman said. "Even though we didn't know sometimes what was going to happen, we had this language of the heart going so we knew we could trust each other."

The end result of the workshop was an adaptation of the play "Here We Are" by Dorothy Parker.

At the University of Hyderabad, located in Hyderabad, Telangana, India, Libman directed a series of Shakespearean scenes performed by graduate students from the university's theater department.

During this production, entitled "The Wonder of Will-This is Your Afterlife!," nine scenes from eight different Shakespearean plays were combined, centering around a fictional TV show modeled after "This is Your Life."

"Shakespeare himself was brought back to life and shown scenes from his plays in order to celebrate the 400th anniversary of his death," Libman said.

In addition, Libman worked with small theater groups and lectured to a variety of audiences, including rural school teachers, university professors and doctoral candidates.

Libman now plans to incorporate lessons learned from her Fulbright experience to create a more vibrant theater experience for her students. She plans to produce an Indian play at Grand Valley within the next few academic years.

"We don't do a lot of work with South Asian theater, but there is a huge body of both theater philosophy and Indian dramatic literature," Libman said.

She also hopes to invite one of her Indian colleagues along with students from the University of Hyderabad to bring a Shakespeare production to Grand Valley in fall 2018 to help celebrate the 25th anniversary of the annual Grand Valley Shakespeare Festival.

"I would love to organize a collaborative project between the theater students at the University of Hyderabad and Grand Valley, either by bringing productions to each country, or, more excitingly, to collaborate by choosing a production, casting it in both countries, having student actors memorize their lines, and then bringing the actors together, either in India or the U.S., to rehearse and perform the play with a cross-cultural and multilingual cast," Libman said.