APPEX Fellows from India

Vinay Kumar
(APPEX I) Born in South India, Mr. Kumar is a dancer, actor and director who studied theater at the School of Drama in Calicut University in Kerala. He won a first prize for his direction of the play ‘Stree’ performed by the Women’s Polytechnic Campus Theatre. In 1992, he joined the Ankanam Theater Company where he studied several different traditional Indian performance genres including Kalaripayattu, Kathakali and Kootiyattam. He has given theatre workshops in voice and movement training and acted in a short film on environmental preservation. As an independent artist, he is working to create a new contemporary Indian theatre style.

Koyppa Sarada Narayanan
Known professionally as Painkulam Narayanan Chakyar, Mr. Narayanan was born in Kerala to the distinguished Chakyar family of traditional storytellers and actors of Sanskrit drama tradition of Kootiyattam. Having studied from the age of ten under the late guru Painkulam Rama Chakyar, who is credited for the revival of the art form, Mr. Narayanan has participated in several key cultural events, including the prestigious Kootiyattam Festival held in New Delhi. He has traveled internationally, conducting several workshops, as well as co-directing the experimental production of Bhasa's Swapnavasavadatham (produced by Darpana Academy, 1992). As his family holds the rights to conduct Kootiyattam performances at various temples, he perpetuates the tradition by teaching the younger generations that will follow.

S.S. Kalai Rani
An actress trained at the Chennai Film Institute as well as at the Tamil Nadu Government Music College, Kalai Rani applies her performing arts experience to her work as the resource person at the Children’s Theatre Workshop/Koothu-p-pattarai Theatre Group in Tamil Nadu. Though her formal training focuses on the traditional Indian disciplines such as Kootiyattam, Karnatik music and Thala, Ms. Rani has also worked extensively in Western theater productions, thus expanding her range of cross-cultural performance forms.