A few months ago, Simon Sharkey, Associate Director, National Theatre of Scotland asked British Council about theatre groups in Kolkata. The baby of the list was perhaps Tin Can, a 15-member group led by Tanaji Dasgupta and Soumyak Kanti De Biswas. Products of the famous British Council School Drama Festival, the founders were delighted that the group was chosen to perform their debut production, Intro, at the festival.

The excitement was almost tangible. When we, the members of Tin Can, reached Heathrow on the night of 4 July, the silent exchange of looks between us signified the start of something very special. It signified the culmination of something big we had been working on for a while. It signified a unanimous ‘We are actually here’.

Having travelled half way across the world for Exchange ’09 — a theatre festival in Macrobert, Stirling from July 6 to 11, organised by the National Theatre Scotland — we were all looking forward to what the week-long event had in store for us. The theme of the festival this year was ‘Who are you?’ and to depict that best, we had chosen to present Intro — Tin Can’s ‘oldnew’ play that perfectly embodied who we were and, more importantly, where we came from.

On reaching Stirling the next morning, we were put up at the beautiful residential accommodations of the Stirling University. Macrobert — where the auditorium was and where all the action for the next few days was going to take place — was hardly 15 minutes away. The entire university campus itself was awe-inspiringly picturesque — quite ideal for nurturing creativity and collaborations.

In the next few whirlwind-like days, our schedules were packed. Since the orientation workshop, we got along wonderfully with the other groups, which made the experience even more enjoyable. There were nine teams all in all this year at Exchange ’09 and it was also the first year that international groups were introduced to the festival (other than us, there was Kopergietery from Belgium) and that added a lot of richness to the texture of Exchange.

The days at festival went by participating in the various interesting workshops that were taking place — be it dance, invisible theatre, technical skills, circus skills, voice modulation and so much more. We were introduced to some innovative theatre games as well, such as Quizoola for instance — a unique question and answer session that challenges one’s confidence, acting and honesty. Tin Can also held two workshops at the festival that initiated the participants into the way we work as team back home. The sessions were really well received and one went back with something refreshingly new.

The evenings were all about the performances. It was a treat watching two groups wow us one after another every evening with their distinctively original work. The Open Mic nights or Game Nights after the shows would just charge everyone up further to let their hair down.

On 9 July, the day Tin Can performed, we were the only ones taking the stage. Our set design was quite elaborate, our costumes pretty intricate — each bit that we had laboriously carried all the way from Kolkata to Stirling had to come together just the way it did for our Kolkata shows. Considering our play was multilingual, subtitles had been arranged and they needed to be rehearsed with. Lights had to be fixed, sound had to be checked, each one of us had to get used to this absolutely alien space —all in a day’s work. But the technical support and backstage help we got from Macrobert and NTS was remarkable. The day went off smoothly as did the show. The reactions we got from the viewers were truly overwhelming. The subtitles made Intro more understandable for an international audience but despite that, the visual character of the play along with the dynamic live music seemed to stand out and we couldn’t be more thankful for the way our performance was received. It was a reiteration of the fact that art really has no boundaries. Blissful relief.

As the week came to a close, we all felt a sense of deep sadness. It may have been a few days but it gave us all so much — good friends, new skills, fresh ideas and ideologies — basically an experience of a lifetime. We were thankful that we were the chosen ones for the festival. On the last night, the festival ended with a bang with a traditional Scottish dance. Almost everyone was dressed in conventional gear. Laughter, music and mayhem filled the air and in the end everyone held hands singing Auld Lang Syne together, knowing and hating the fact that this was the end of Exchange ’09.

For Scotland-Kolkata Connections, please contact Samarjit Guha.