Surya Dev Chandra is a master’s student at University of Kent, currently pursuing an MA in Physical Acting. His background is a fitting one to match the hybridity of much physical and experimental theatre practice. He has worked with Shudrka Hyderabad, a theatre group in southern India, trained with Swapan Mondal, Director-Founder of the group and collaborated with colleagues in India and UK. At the centre of his pedagogy is the work of Michael Chekhov, but what makes Surya’s work so singular is his ability to draw upon and meld a range of approaches into the single end of creating the physically articulate and responsive performer.

 

Surya is not interested in physical virtuosity for its own sake, but has an extraordinary ability to awaken his performers’ body. His quest is for the alive, attentive and joyful performing body which marries risk with vulnerability and self-confidence with authenticity. For Surya authenticity seems less to do with a potentially dubious truthful or essential body, than about economy of movement, and the fluid responsive organization of the body’s musculature and skeletal structure. Drawing particularly upon the principles of Chekhov, Surya’s work manages at once to function at a meticulous level of detail, and at the same time to operate on a meta and holistic plane which prepares the actor for the generic challenges of performance.

 

Being an ardent follower of (Michael) Chekhov’s techniques, Surya’s approach to physical theatre encompasses experimentation with a variety of movement forms. He also aims to develop physical technique and expressivity to empower the stage performer’s art. Beyond this, he hopes to experiment with a number of movement forms that helps to better understand and direct his own talent and discover what best suits his artistic needs and capacities that may be further developed. In India he has applied his movement forms in plays like ‘Gadha Kahini’, ‘The Caucasian Chalk Circle’ and others.

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Surya is currently working as a Production Assistant for project 'PROJEKT ENCOUNTER' at PROJEKT EUROPA where he also facilitates workshops for migrants, refugees and asylum seekers.