Evan Hastings loves to perform in India

He might hail from California, but theatre artist Evan Hastings has embraced India’s culture, people, food and its flair for the dramatic. Armed with a creative spirit, this American teaches drama therapy at a city college, and has performed in various parts of India, even in remote villages.
“I was working in San Francisco when my friend asked me to come to India.I got a job here and did my first workshop with kids in Baiyyapanahalli,” says Evan, who is totally at home in India. “When I go back to America, I find the food bland. I think I have even adapted myself to the little mannerisms here, once I shook my head to say yes or no like Indians here often do,” he says.
Evan, who is trained in Augusto Boal’s theatre of the oppressed, conducts workshops in drama therapy and hip-hop therapy. After giving the prisoners of Oklahoma a cathartic release with hip hop theatre, and relentlessly taking part in theatre activism in Washington — Evan’s passion to stop the pervasive nature of violence in people’s lives is palpable.
“I work on issues like child sexual abuse, gender violence and sexual abuse among adults,” says Evan.
He believes in interactive theatre — a forum for people to go up on stage and move the plot forward. “Once a woman came up to me and told me her story. She went up on stage and narrated it to the audience, and we used the colour red to reflect her rage.”
Ask him why he finds theatre fascinating, and he says, “ Theatre is love. It allows me to talk to people. I place faith in it.”
After having travelled to tiny pockets of villages in the country, Evan says that the people in the rural areas have an education on life. “People there adjust and adapt to extreme situations. Watching them live with the bare minimum is almost inspiring.”
In addition to this, he says that rural and folk culture enriched his experience with theatre. “I worked with people who use shadow puppets and watched a puppet performance of Ramayana. I even slept on the floor of the temple premises,” he says.
And like any Bangalorean he loves the city’s rooftop restaurants, its multi-cultural population and the metro. Evan may have taken to Indian culture, but does he feel like an outsider? “People stare at me whenever I walk down the road. But I love the attention. After all, I’m a theatre artist,” he says.