Khelaiya Production was born out of sheer love and passion for classical music and the theatre.
Awarded for its outstanding contribution to the arts at the City of Greater Dandenong Australia Day ceremony, the community group has run for eight years and with 125 volunteers who all work together out of devotion for their work.
Khelaiya has proven successful sharing high-quality theatre, musical productions to celebrate culture, storytelling and community connection.
“I felt so good, but honestly, you should’ve seen my team and their excitement,” Harsiddhi Mody says.
“That’s their award, nobody gets out money from this.
“To be recognised, it was very humbling because everyone pitches in as a community. People do so much community work out there, and to be recognised is very humbling.”
The production team is made up of locals from Greater Dandenong and the south east. They occasionally hire spaces in Greater Dandenong to practise performances before their on-stage performance at the Drum Theatre.
Not everyone can be given a role to play all the time, but great consideration is given to the role of the character and the person best suited, Ms Mody says.
“They come and complain if they miss out on production roles, they wait for the next round.
“We are very blessed everybody wants to be part of this.”
The platform allows emerging young and senior artists, performers, technical workers and other production workers to gather experiences.
Working for a production company as a prompter and assistance, Ms Mody always dreamt of her own production team.
The Indian national migrated to Australia 30 years ago, keen to showcase, educate Indians and others from all walks of lives about the vast ethnicities, diversity, colours, traditions, culture, literature, art that makes up the great country.
Consisting of 28 states and eight union territories governed by the government, India is considered the most ethnically diverse country in the world, with more than 2000 diverse ethnic groups.
So much diversity in each 28 states can also be an issue so Ms Mody intended to educate the audience about each of them through her community theatre.
“All the states and provinces have their own customs and traditions. I wanted to ensure each state or province is shown, that the music and story can be narrated to people.
“Even though we are all Indian we are bound by our own state and region, and we don’t know as much as we should know about each other.
“I made sure the literature, custom and music shines through for all states.”
Their live performance are presented in Hindi, Urdu and English.
The production team has produced three short films as well.
Great company, fondness and dedication to art and delicious food is all that is needed to keep the production team glued together.
