One of the main focuses of this initiative is to enable the people from the disability community in Bangladesh to actively get involved with the mainstream arts community and while doing so, they are not considered or portrayed just as disabled people in arts, rather as artists who can contribute to the art community significantly. Sundaram will work as a nationwide platform to connect the artists with disabilities to work together, share knowledge, create new things, and show how these people can contribute to the society through the power of arts.

Launched during the British Council’s disability arts project, DARE, Sundaram is the result of the continuous work of Dhaka Theatre and the British Council. For over eleven years in the arts arena in Bangladesh, these organizations have been working together to create opportunities for inclusive arts. The journey goes back to 2013 when it all started- as a legacy to the Globe to Globe festival London 2012, where Dhaka Theatre successfully staged “The Tempest”, the British Council, in partnership with the UK’s Graeae Theatre Company along with one of Bangladesh’s leading theatre companies Dhaka Theatre, started working on Bangladesh’s first ever theatre production with persons with disabilities, called A Different Romeo and Juliet. The works started in 2013, and the show was staged in 2016.

After that, in 2019, a theatre piece named ‘Fearless’ was produced by the British Council in association with Dhaka Theatre and fully comprised of upcoming theatre artists with disability. In 2023, “71 in Silence”, a physical storytelling theatre; the first of its kind in Bangladesh, was staged with 15 artists from all eight divisional cities from the DARE project.

Sundaram was established in 2019 at Dhaka. From 2019 onwards, the British Council and Dhaka Theatre have worked on the biggest disability arts project in Bangladesh; DARE (Disability Arts: Redefining Empowerment) which has worked on eight divisional cities of Bangladesh to connect both persons with disabilities and practicing theatre artists together. The project concluded with the International Disability Art Festival held on 26-27 April 2024 at National Theatre Hall, Bangladesh Shilpakala Academy. Eight inclusive theatre productions from eight divisional cities, one inclusive theatre production from India, and one of the previously made piece “71 in Silence” was staged during the festival. The festival also hosted policy discussion sessions by IID, interactive exhibition with the works of disabled artists, film screening focusing on disability and disability arts, talks with disabled artists, and a marketplace with numerous disability and human rights organizations. The festival was the first of its kind in South Asia, and all the productions were highly appreciated by the audience and theatre goers, with an attendance of over 6500 people during the theatre shows where almost all the shows were house-full.

Sundaram aims to continue its success from the experience and the learnings from the festival, and the works that has been done throughout the years. Its vision is to cater for inclusive arts in Bangladesh, to support the communities that do not get the proper representation in the wider arts context, and to show the power of arts to make the society more inclusive in the upcoming days.