Founded in 1982 by a group of theater workers to create Nepali theater movement, Aarohan (meaning ‘climb’ or ‘performing in space’ in Nepali) aims to seek a theater that reflects the diverse society, history and cultural traditions of our country. The team pursues theater as politics, as a form of resistance to the passivity induced by globalized consumer-oriented mass media. They aim to create theater activists, who know their history and engage creatively and skillfully in the struggles of the people, in their school and in communities throughout the country.

Aarohan performs Proscenium Theater by Nepali playwrights along with the adaptation of foreign plays to the Nepali context. Popularly known as Gurukul or Aarohan Gurukul, it also provides training throughout the country, helping communities create their own theater groups. The theater that also performs Forum Theater trains marginalized and oppressed people to use theater as a weapon to improve their lives. Nepal’s first school of theater, Gurukul, was established in 2002 with a vision of providing theater education and training the individuals who would later become the next generation theater artist in Nepal. Aarohan was the first of its kind to formally launch theater education as well as introduce theater as a profession.

With a belief that indigenous theater movement serves as an alternative to a globalized consumer-oriented mass media as well as a tool for empowering marginal communities and individuals in Nepal, the Aarohan Gurukul was established by the group of theater workers with the initiative by Sunil Pokharel, Kulguru (Principal) and founder as well as one of the most prominent theater artists of Nepal. Aarohan Theater Group has celebrated cultural dynamism for past two decades and during this time, for the performance, it has adapted some of the great plays of Nepal as well as that of the world to the Nepal context and has performed plays like Oedipus by Sophocle, Scapan by Moliere, The Man without a Shadow and The Respectable Prostitute by Jean Paul Satre and The Just and The Outsider by Camus, among others. They regularly perform the plays by Nepali playwrights like Govinda Bahadur Gothale, Bijaya Malla, Abhi Subedi and Ashesh Malla.

Committed to creating a healthy, beautiful, honest and fearless society Aarohan has been able to establish itself as one of the most dynamic and respected cultural institutions of Nepal along with being able to the one to create highly artistic theater for proscenium and socially committed theater for the streets and villages of our country. Aarohan Theater Group runs a fulltime two year theater course with classes ranging from acting and world theater to yoga and martial arts. They have kept alive the concept of Gurukul and the students here live at the school and manage the centre themselves doing all kinds of works from cleaning to supervising various departments to participating in theater productions. It provides two year residential course, short courses, theater and musical performances seminars and lectures and theater festivals. For further details, contact:

Gurukul, School of Theater

Creative Heights, Baneshwor

G.P.O. Box: 12819

Kathmandu, Nepal

Tel: +977-1-4466956

Fax: 977-1-4433651