Associate Teacher (2022)
Fitzmaurice Institute Regional Coordinator for South Asia
Founder - Vachika Voicework & Actors Ensemble India Forum (AEIF)
Vachika Voicework
435 2nd Cross, 11th Main
Indiranagar
Bangalore - 560008
India
Other Institutions: Actors Ensemble India Forum
435 2nd Cross, 11th Main
Indiranagar
Bangalore - 560008
India
+91 94480 67309
mallika.prasad@gmail.com
Also Serving: Mumbai, Delhi, Chennai, Kolkata, Singapore
Phone: +91 9448067309
Mallika is a multi-award-winning director and performer; she has produced a number of documentary films and starred in seminal films such as ”Devi” Ahilya Bai directed by Nachiket & Jayoo Patwardhan, opposite Shabana Azmi and Sadashiv Amraporkar (Hindi - 2002) and Kanooru Heggadathi which won the National Award for Best film in 1999 (Kannada). She acted in Anurag Kashyap’s yet-to-be-released Hindi feature film – Ghanghor Connection (March 2020) and is currently shooting for Soup – a web series directed by Abhishek Chaubey for Netflix (2021-22). Her most recent hybrid (at the cusp of digital-film-theatre), Hidden in Plain Sight won the Infallibles Awards 2021 at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival.
She is a well-known personality in Kannada television, having been part of the creative teams of several prominent serials such as Mussanjaya Katha Prasanga, Garva, Guptagamini, as well as playing the lead antagonist in her latest mega-serial Nagakannike (2017-18) which received critical acclaim and was awarded the best serial of the year. She has also lent her voice as the narrator, Cauvery for the prestigious Son et lumière Show at the Mysuru Palace.
Her documentary films have engaged with rural women’s cooperatives in Rajasthan, as well as agricultural labour groups in Jharkhand & Bihar. She has documented the practice of the ‘gurus-shishya parampara’ for Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India. As part of an initiative to preserve intangible cultural heritage for three rare Carnatic music instruments – Moring, Khanjira and the Ghatam. She has worked with public and private institutions, NGOs and government organisations and created over 30 info/documentary films around themes of rainwater harvesting, HIV/AIDS awareness, pedagogy and actor training in theatre schools in Karnataka, and legal rights for women between (1998 – 2004). She has written, directed and co-created 40 films as part of ISRO’s EDUSAT initiative to assist school teachers and students of classes 3 to 10 in specific science lessons, and spoken English across the country.
Mallika founded Actors Ensemble India Forum (AEIF) in 2007. AEIF is a media production company committed to the creation of cutting-edge original content that emerges from creative risk-taking and rigorous research. There is an active and sustained engagement with martial forms and physical practices and exploration of how physical vocabularies intersect with and inform body, voice, text and sound. AEIF has incubated new writing since it’s inspection, having directed, produced, designed and toured (nationally and internationally) several award winning and critically acclaimed theatre productions like, Kya Aap Bhi Shamil The, Dragon Fly, Creeper, Dancing on Glass, Bust, Ultimate Kurukshetra and Vanguard to name a few.
With over two decades of experience as performer/educator/actor trainer, she has developed Vachika – which is an ongoing dialogue with existing voice training methods and practices in India and around the world. Vachika’s uniqueness is the use of the Sanskrit alphabet as the phonetic base and Rasa as its theoretical underpinning. Initially developed as batteries of exercises adapted from Yoga, Pranayama and Kalaripayattu to help actors, now has a wide application in wellbeing and is accessible to anyone interested in the human voice.
Mallika teaches regularly across South Asia and has designed a three-year Voice & Speech Curriculum for the intercultural performer. She has taught at premiere theatre and performance institutes with include LASALLE, Nanyang Academy of Fine Arts and Intercultural Theatre Institute in Singapore.
Degrees & Institutions: MA Performance Making, Goldsmiths College, University of London - (2011-12), PGD – Acting, National School of Drama, Delhi - (1995 -98)
Languages: English, Hindi/Urdu, Other (we'll email for follow-up)
Specializations: Acting, Diversity/Inclusion, Presence, Private Coaching, Public Speaking, Speech & Dialects, Transgender Coaching, Voiceover