Case Studies

Akvarious Productions was founded by noted actor (film and theatre), screenwriter and director Akash Khurana in the early 90s. Its purpose was to groom and promote new talent in the fields of screenwriting and theatre. Since 1997, the founder's son, Akarsh Khurana, has spearheaded Akvarious. In the last 20 years, Akvarious Productions (Bombay, India) has staged over 60 plays covering a wide range of genres and languages, of which six have been nominated for the Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards and two have won the prestigious award for Best Play. Akvarious has performed over 1200 shows across 30 cities, in India and abroad, and has produced nine plays for children.

The Ballet Festival of India, which was launched in 2017, supports the growth, exposure and education of ballet in India. Its objectives include building and engaging a vibrant ballet community in the country and making quality ballet available and affordable here. Each edition of the festival is unique in its structure and has included classes, film screenings, and seminars on music, nutrition and cross-training methods in the past.

Past editions of the festival have hosted eminent choreographers like Sebastian Vinet, Cindy Jourdain and Tusha Dallas as part of the faculty. The second edition of the festival was held in a digital format in 2020 owing to the pandemic. The third instalment, in September 2022, was held in a hybrid format with the faculty teaching online and participants being given the option to dance in person at physical centres in six cities: Ahmedabad, Bengaluru, Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai and Pune. It offered two sets of experiences: one for senior students (those above the age of 12), dancers, and teachers, and a special one for children between the ages of eight and 12.

Bhasha Centre for Performing Arts is a Bangalore based organisation that serves to create tools and resources to streamline information and access to it, for and within the performing arts community in India.

Dur Se Brothers is a production company that produces theater, live shows, acting workshops, performances, and compering.


Dur Se Brothers has produced several award-winning plays, including:
Elephant in the Room, Hello Farmaaish, Yatagarasu, Basti Mein Masti.

Indian Ensemble was founded in 2009 by Abhishek Majumdar and Sandeep Shikhar, a reputed and acclaimed multi-lingual theatre company based out of Bangalore that produces and supports theatre work which is fundamentally Indian in its context. Their plays revolve around tales of contemporary society, culture and politics. They function actively as alaboratory for research and training in various processes of Theatre and performance while continuing to create and run productions throughout the year. The company’s continued focus is on original texts which are then researched and devised with a team of artists. They work with professional actors, directors, playwrights, designers, sound artists and technicians from across the country. Indian Ensemble productions include Thook (2014), Kaumudi (2014), Gasha (2012), Afterlife of Birds (2010-11), Harlesdan High Street (2010-11), Rizwaan (2009-10) and Treadmill (2009).

Indianostrum Théâtre is a Pondicherry based professional theatre troupe that was founded in 2007 by Koumarane Valavane.

After working at the Théâtre du Soleil in Paris, Koumarane Valavane returned to India in 2006 to found Indianostrum Théâtre.

Their core aim as a theatre troupe is to expand the role of modern theatre in the cultural life of the country, by developing new modern texts and exploring its relationships with traditional forms and transcending political, social and historical divides.

Jagriti is a Performance Arts space dedicated to Theatre, Music, Dance and Comedy. Founded in 2011 by Arundhati and Jagdish Raja, the space has hosted several productions from India and around the world.

KathaSiyah is a Bangalore based theatre group formed in 2015 that looks forward to creating work together with young emerging artists from various fields.

The Patchworks Ensemble is a theatre company that strives to create relevant and surprising theatre. Their work is process based, starting with explorations and workshops, from which emerges art that is organic and owned by all the artists and collaborators involved. The Patchworks Ensemble offers a unique theatre experience which lays importance on the actor’s body and comes alive in the audience’s imagination.

Pickle Factory is an artist led company, working with artists, audiences and often self-generated support systems to build a diverse dance-curious community, connecting to larger conversations of arts and society.

Pickle Factory is about the live performance experience and the spaces that host them. It responds to the lack of infrastructure and support systems for performance in India, and comes out of a felt need – a need to fill the void for a home for dance and movement practice in a country that boasts innumerable movement expressions.

QTP is a theatre & arts management company that specialises in unique and engaging experiences for live audiences. Over the last two decades QTP has built up a reputation for producing groundbreaking work of new writers, remarkable restaging of classics, and also touring international productions across the length and breadth of India.

Sandbox is a Bangalore-based artists' collective comprising a group of artists and art administrators working together to expand the scope of performance arts.

The collective is led by Nimi Ravindran and Shiva Pathak, who have both worked in the theatre and as arts managers for over a decade. Their aim is to present, commission and disseminate performances of a high standard. They also work towards discovering and sustaining new culturally vibrant spaces in our cities by building new audiences and facilitating multi-disciplinary collaborations between artists.

The Company Theatre (TCT) is an ensemble of professionals engaged in inter-disciplinary & multi-cultural approach to diverse art forms.

Their work is rooted in a search for the truth of human experience through performance.

TCT has since created performances ranging from physical mime and absurdist drama to clown narratives and musical comedies, from immersive promenade acts to site specific experiments. These productions have travelled to audiences all over the world. TCT has also conducted workshops and master classes for all age groups, organised performance related conferences & art festivals as well as contributed to developing an energised performance culture in & around India.

'Theatreconnekt' is a group of people believe in the power of art, to challenge many of society’s deepest assumptions. Among all art practices, theatre and performance art has proved to be a powerful medium of artistic expression capable to cut through complacency and apathy, inspire political actions, facilitate dialogues, empower individuals and communities, and stimulate social change through critical thinking and increased consciousness. As the contemporary performance practices are undergoing multifaceted challenges, the necessity of intercultural and interdisciplinary collaborations are vital to cut cross the existing boundaries of artistic expressions to reinvent new languages. At Theatreconnekt, they intend to address this area by nurturing fresh and new aesthetic sensibilities, promoting innovative experiments and stimulating critical appreciation of theatre and performance-making art.

Third Space Collective is a collective of theatre practitioners trying to create a vocabulary of performance that challenges the socio-political canvas it is derived from.

Visual Respiration is a performance company committed to creating immersive audience experiences. They design performance that is visual and visually-led. Through visual performance, we want to enable shared experiences for participants and audience members. They are focused on a rigourous process of creating performance. They constantly look to collaborate with inter-disciplinary practitioners from around the world to make work that is fresh and exciting.