iLOGY Storytelling & Performance Lab @ CRIPA, Auroville

“The soul does not search, analyse, experiment—it seeks, feels, experiences” – Shri Aurobindo Ghosh

“As soon as we go out of the encasings in which radical mechanism and radical finalism confine our thought, reality appears as a ceaseless upspringing of something new”― Henri Bergson

iLOGY praxis presents a Storytelling & Performance Lab @ Cripa, Auroville, Pondicherry, India

A 3-Day intensive conducted by Janardan Ghosh & Sudipto Dawn. December 28, 29, 20, 2026 from 9:30 am – 5:30 pm on all days.

What if a story is not something we tell, but something that lives through us—remembered by the body, carried by the voice, awakened by objects, and shared as a transformative experience?

What if performance is not an act of representation but an act of becoming? In the very moment of performing, the past is not simply recalled but recreated; memory is not retrieved but lived; identity is not expressed but continuously formed. Performance is not the outcome of becoming—it is becoming itself.

This three-day intensive lab invites participants to explore personal memory through storytelling as an embodied practice. Working with movement, voice, gesture, objects, silence, space, and rasa, participants will discover and shape their own lived experiences into original short performance pieces.

Drawing upon the broader traditions of Indian philosophy, and informed by the aesthetic and philosophical principles of the Natyashastra, the workshop approaches performance as a practice of integrating body, mind, memory, and emotion. Through a process of embodied inquiry, participants are invited to move beyond habitual and mechanized patterns of thought and action, reclaiming the body as a living repository of memory, imagination, and creative potential. Rather than presenting a fixed identity, the workshop invites each participant to experience the self as something continually unfolding through the act of performance.

The workshop is designed for performers, storytellers, theatre practitioners, educators, writers, students, facilitators, and anyone interested in the relationship between body, memory, narrative presence & Indian philosophy.

What Participants Will Explore

Participants will work with:

Memory as pure experience: discovering personal story-seeds through memories, images, places, sounds, and emotions.

Body Movement & Gesture – using walking, stillness, posture, gaze, breath, and simple movement to carry meaning.

Object Work – treating objects as witnesses, companions, memory-holders, and performance partners.

Voice & Sound – exploring whisper, rhythm, repetition, spoken word, silence, and breath.

Rasa-Based Story Design – understanding how emotion becomes shared experience for the audience.

Site & Space Awareness – responding creatively to the atmosphere and architecture of the space within & adjoining CRIPA, Auroville.

Participants Will Take Away

By the end of the workshop, each participant will have created a short story-performance using body, voice, gesture, memory, and object. They will also gain practical tools for performance-making, teaching, writing, facilitation, and self-expression.

It is a space to discover how the body thinks, how memory speaks, and how a story becomes alive in presence.

Final Outcome: Individual or group performances with a closing reflection circle.

To get more information and register for the lab, please fill this form

About the Facilitators

Janardan Ghosh is a highly versatile performing artist, theatre director, academic, playwright, film actor, and performance coach based in West Bengal. His artistic and scholarly work uniquely bridges traditional Indian cultural wisdom with modern performance methodologies. His research work focuses on distinct cultural and philosophical landscapes. Over the years, he has developed and facilitated workshops, retreats, and performances with artists, students, educators, and professionals. His pedagogy encourages participants to investigate their own lived experiences through embodied exploration, moving beyond habitual patterns of thinking and performance to create original work grounded in authenticity and presence. Beyond acting, directing and teaching, Janardan Ghosh has been involved in cultural initiatives, international collaborations, and performance-based educational programs, contributing to conversations around theatre as a mode of learning, self-discovery, and social engagement.

Sudipta Dawn is an independent artistic researcher, theatre practitioner, workshop facilitator, creator, film maker and performance director who focuses on contemporary, experimental and socially engaged performance based practices. He is the founder-director of Culture Monks, a multi-disciplinary creative enterprise and performance lab established in 2011. He is deeply involved in alternative, experiential performance methods & ways of becoming. His research work focuses on distinct cultural and philosophical landscapes specifically from India to build foundations for creative workshops & productions. Through Culture Monks, he drives projects that use sensory, art-centered experiences and performance to address modern ecological and social issues, creating new perspectives and dialogue within communities. He frequently collaborates with contemporary artists, performers, and academic institutions across India and internationally to bridge the gap between traditional cultural wisdom and contemporary performance practice.

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