5 reasons why (L) Sukracharya Rabha’s contribution was huge for Assam and Northeast

TNT News | Guwahati, June 9, 2018:

Assam and Northeast region as a whole lost a great personality on Friday. Noted Assamese theatre personality Sukracharya Rabha, famed for his open air theatre festival, died of cardiac arrest at his village home in Goalpara district on Friday night, family sources said. He was 41.

He is survived by wife and two children.

Little about the Sukracharjya Rabha

Sukracharjya Rabha was born 10 April 1977 at Rampur village in Goalpara of Assam. He learnt the art of theatre initially in workshops on theatre direction and design at Guwahati. He further trained under H. Kanhailal and H. Sabitri at Kalakshetra, Imphal in Manipur for two years. Later, he assisted Kanhailal in the workshop productions and the project, Nature-Lore in 2005.

His prominent plays are 'Tikhar', 'Chankoy', 'Rupalim', 'Lovita', 'Poidom', 'Madaiah Muchi', 'Dangai' and 'Damukuchi'.

5 reasons why (L) Sukracharya Rabha's contribution was huge for Assam and Northeast

1. His love for the art was not confined only to himself; with his skills and experience, he shared the knowledge he had acquired with many aspiring artists not only from Assam but also the rest of the region.
2. He founded his theatre group 'Badungduppa', a rural-based theatre centre at his village Rampur, in 1998 and had directed several plays in Rabha, Bodo and Nepali languages. Through his centre, he promoted not just the art form but also popularizes the use of local languages in such platforms.
3. He used to organise the annual open air theatre festival—'Under the Sal Theatre'–which brought theatre lovers from across the country and abroad to the remote village in Goalpara district.
4. Rabha took this art form to a whole new level in Northeast India and exposed the varied culture, linguistic plurality of the region to the whole world. He had conducted several workshops, including 'The Ritual in Theatre' project, jointly with Dayna Martinez Moraless in collaboration with the Theatre Embassy, Netherlands.
5. He made the state and the region proud when he received the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar of Sangeet Natak Akademi for theatre direction in 2009.

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