Riyaaz is a part written, and part devised piece to ‘create a message based show which will allow the audience to be fully immersed into a series of expressionistic episodes of theatre’. This production was in the style of a ‘choose your own adventure’ format, where audiences saw the same beginning and ending of the show, but could create their own narratives for the main character, where themes of positive and negative stereotypes around family, school, party culture and friendships at high school age, were explored. The large ensemble of 20 people portraying this work were between 12 and 15 years old, which allowed for a wide variety of lived experience to inform the collective emotional memory and imagination, to create an unconventional, site-specific exploratory production of accountability in society, to oneself and the people around us. Stylistically this show was rooted in naturalism, with elements of abstract physical theatre to signify deep changes within the characters. The show aimed to encourage audience members to consider how their actions, no matter the size, was affecting the people around them, and from the feedback we received, this provoked progressive conversations on themes of personal reflection, community growth and connection and identity! 

Riyaaz was performed on May 2nd 2019, in the Blake Studio and across Fleming Building, as part of an Independent Study Showcase Evening.

Saath Mein, was a short film, translated and inspired from the devised show Riyaaz, with much of the same cast as the original piece, to reckon with questions of identity, and how our experiences and environments shape who we become. This was filmed on the 13th of June 2019 and released in September 2019.