Often incandescent and ineffable, art finds bearing in almost everything around. Which is probably why it invariably touches the realms of one’s inside. However most of the times we conveniently sleepwalk through many such experiences that mordantly influence us. Galvanising many such feelings are these artists who’ve taken their creativity to a level where it isn’t just aesthetic but also therapeutic.

A Dramatic effect
Circa 1992. Mehnoor Yar Khan, a drama therapist and founder member of Rainbow Inc, Hyderabad was working with a womens organisation in Jerusalem, she witnessed the physical and psychological violence that children were subjected to both outside and inside their homes. “There wasn’t a single safe place for children to express themselves or just hang out,” she says. This concern became the root cause of a pilot project that she came up with—Children and Therapy through theatre and video.
From 1993 to 1999, she worked with the Culture and Free Thought Association in Khan Younis in the Gaza Strip where she researched the use of drama techniquesin healing. She came up with a manual in Arabic and English called ‘I am the sea, who are you?’ “Each one of us has hidden thoughts, ideas, and a lot more that we find difficult to talk about. We shut these aspects within us and ignore them. If and when they surface, they can leave us depressed and overwhelmed,” she says. Her workshop ‘I want to be me’ puts participants through a series of drama techniques like Forum theater, Image theatre, Rainbow of Desire, Stop and Think, Softly Softly, Stop and Think, Imporvisations, role reversal, Playing with time, Mirroring, etc.

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