Welcome Everyone To
OGLAM:Organization to Give Life A Meaning Promoting Health and Wellness
We are a multi-faceted team focused on Health & Healing through Performance Arts, Fitness, Storytelling and Global Cuisine!
About Us:
Welcome
Dr. Janardan Ghosh is a performance artist, academic, theatre director, performance coach and storyteller specializing in Katha 'Koli; a new art of storytelling which includes the use of traditional theories, contemporary performance vocabulary & interactive media. He's a professor at the esteemed RKM Vivekananda Univ.
About Us:
Welcome
Jodie Johnson is a multidisciplinary fitness coach, writer, performance artist & energy healer specializing in 1 on 1 online coaching & group fitness: Zumba Fitness, Aqua Zumba, Senior Fitness, Guided Meditation, Chakra Yoga & Alpine Skiing. She is a staunch advocate for justice with a BA in Psy/CRJ from SUNY Albany.
OGLAM is a proud sponsor of DAWA: Dignity At Work ACT
Angel Card Readings Available
Jodie privately practices card readings and wishes to make affordable readings for those who'd like to ask a question. Only Angel Cards, which have been blessed, are used along with powerful crystals to ask our spirit guides for advice and guidance. As a sensitive & intuitive, Jodie uses a 3-card sequence; her cat often joins her to assist. Open-ended questions are answered in the order they are received. A small donation of $20 per question is requested and you will get a detailed response. Hit the Contact Us button below to get started!
Fun for all ages!
Fun for all ages!
Fun for all ages!
We love working with children! We have over 2 decades of experience giving educational workshops and parties for kids to experience the Performing Arts! Music, Movement and lots of Playful, Engaging Activities
OGLAM-Bistro
Fun for all ages!
Fun for all ages!
Exciting Global Cuisine!
We are working on an exciting cookbook and will have samples of our recipes at some of our events. In the meantime, shop with Jodie for some amazingly healthy and delicious products at:
http://shop.gcodenutrition.com?aff=539
Feel free to enter my personal discount code: GCODEWithJod during Checkout.
OGLAM-Fitness
Fun for all ages!
OGLAM-Fitness
Fitness Coaching!
Book a session today with Jodie:
https://www.ravevip.com/profile/jodiejohnson
To read about Jodie's experience and credentials find her here on linkedin:
About Performance & Fitness w/ OGLAM
OGLAM-Bally
Your Health & Wellness Matter
Your Health & Wellness Matter
Grow Towards Wellness!
Choose to live a healthy and fulfilling life with OGLAM-Bally! Our shows incorporate traditional Indian Classical Theatre, Artforms and Films! Wellness is more than being free from illness: it is a process of change and growth towards a mentally, spiritually and physically healthy lifestyle.
Join Dr. Janardan Ghosh as he takes you on a labyrinth of inward experiences! Just a few examples of his work and beyond!
Waking in Dream Bodies:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYEkdQ4MIeA&list=PLQaRKP_jIwIARYxY9Roj6vFWFck8QnVnl&index=48&t=0s
Butoh Theatre in Kolkata:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkYdM-DZVmg&list=PLQaRKP_jIwIARYxY9Roj6vFWFck8QnVnl&index=54&t=0s
Dr. Janardan Ghosh Delivers Hope and Healing:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lMeD1kVFD6g&list=PLQaRKP_jIwIARYxY9Roj6vFWFck8QnVnl&index=4&t=173s
Your Health & Wellness Matter
Your Health & Wellness Matter
Your Health & Wellness Matter
In order to live a higher quality life, maintaining optimal wellness is key. Everything we feel and do relates to our well-being and directly affects our actions and emotions. In order to subdue stress, reduce illness, and ensure positive moments in your life, you must achieve optimal wellness. OGLAM-Bistro is coming out with an e-book. You can get an idea of our recipes, nutritional and supplement advice in our private Facebook group: In The Studio With OGLAM Fitness. https://www.facebook.com/groups/176731699974001/
Live With Passion & Purpose with OGLAM
Live With Passion & Purpose with OGLAM
Live With Passion & Purpose with OGLAM
To achieve optimal wellness, one must apply it towards every possible endeavor. You can apply a wellness approach towards your environment, community, career, belief systems, physical activities, self care, healthy eating, self esteem, and creative activities. Applying wellness in your everyday life will allow you to achieve your full potential and live with passion and purpose. Find us on Facebook/Private Group: In The Studio with OGLAM Fitness. We recently started a YouTube Channel: In The Studio with OGLAM Fitness which has two sample classes of Sunset Salutations with Jodie. This is a 30 min. beginner's evening stretch class with a guided meditation to help you relax & unwind at bedtime. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D9QOsAw2f9A&t=9s and https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVSOx8CL_y0&t=175s
OGLAM-PHEEL Storytelling Center
Live With Passion & Purpose with OGLAM
Live With Passion & Purpose with OGLAM
PHEEL: Performing Healing Educating Entertaining Loving
Our experienced storytellers bring you Fun, Expertise and Compassion for All Ages! Click the link below to hear an original short story by Jodie Johnson.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJZhMZdXNPI&t=22s
In the Media
STORY TELLERS
Experimental, eclectic
By Shalini Singh | From issue dated December 25, 2016
Colourful convergence: Janardan Ghosh has combined multimedia, music and lighting for his new form of storytelling in Kolkata | Salil Bera
Janardan Ghosh
- All stories in katha koli are to do with feminine energy, which exists in every person. If a man relates to feminine energy, it doesn’t mean he is effeminate.
Unlike some sort of a structure that a general story takes, theatre person, professor and now storyteller, Janardan Ghosh is experimenting with a non-linear form that he calls ‘katha koli’. He has used the body, multimedia, music and lighting to come up with a storytelling work on feminine energy. It was performed recently at the Proscenium Art Centre, a hard-to-locate culture centre on Ripon Street in Kolkata.
Performed in English and Bengali, the story, borrowed from a Bengali folktale, Digambar, is about a man trying to understand the changes he sees in his daughter growing up. Woman power is at the heart of experimental storytelling, too, it seems. Ghosh’s work has four characters, including him as the main narrator, exploring the story built around the goddess Kali using a screen projector, mood lighting, live music, vocal effects and costumes. “The idea is to experiment with how other mediums can contribute to our storytelling performance. It is still a work in progress. I don’t like rigid, structured performances. We might change elements as we go along,” he says. Before anyone calls it theatre, Ghosh is quick to add, there is a narrator who is central to the performance and hence the form retains its storytelling character.
The immersive, intense performance ended with a bowl of colourful Gems passed around with a hand mirror—the audience ate the sweet and then looked at their discoloured (or coloured) tongue in the mirror. Kali or the feminine energy in all beings. It seems an obvious choice. “Well, being a Bengali, living in West Bengal, Kali is a dominating goddess in our cultural world. It is not about Kali as a woman but as energy. We tried to explore that energy in everyday life, legends, mythology, popular culture, where, for example, Lady Gaga with how she comes across or Uma Thurman who could be Kali in the film Kill Bill—how the feminine energy is cultivated within us and around us,” he explains.
Eco-feminism theories have been a major anchor for Ghosh, who finds the idea of disruption interesting. “Kali liberates you,” he says. “She is the destroyer mother, and Shiva is a figure of calm, stillness for her. This storytelling is about base performance. It is not melody all the time, there is violence in the music effects, too.”
Ghosh is also looking to question gender codes at a time when the subject is big everywhere. “In a contemporary situation, the mind and body are colonised where logic wins over emotion,” he says. “We looked at Tagore’s women, who were seen as supporters of men. We challenge that aspect of his legacy. All stories in katha koli are to do with feminine energy, which exists in every person. If a man relates to feminine energy, it doesn’t mean he is effeminate. We work by bringing up storylines and circulate to each other. I call us ‘living storytellers’; our work is organic.”
Ghosh, who hails from Dhanbad, moved to Kolkata three decades ago after a degree in engineering that “choked” him. He then studied literature in the city and got into theatre. Now he is moving into storytelling with his charmingly named genre, katha koli. “The word means ‘word-bud’ in Bengali. The idea is that a word blooms when we use it to tell a story,” he explains.
How does it link to his background in theatre? “Storytelling is the source of theatre,” he says. “There is a truth to storytelling which is not [there] in theatre. We want to go back to the origin. A storyteller never wants to be the character he is narrating.”
Where does he plan to take it? “Scotland has a big storytelling culture. We want to plan a festival based on ‘grandma’s stories’, which is lacking here today. In Europe and west America, storytelling has been big,” he says. “In India, we don’t need to institutionalise it; it is a home product for us! My personal spiritual quest is to reach a higher level of human experience through a storytelling performance. I wish to be in a state of trance—that would be my last story.”
KALI, A KALEIDOSCOPE
Kali, the unconventional Hindu goddess, has fascinated many. Emily Hennessey, a storyteller from the United Kingdom, who has trained under veteran Indian storyteller Vayu Naidu, collaborated with Indian sitar player Sheema Mukherjee earlier this year to perform a piece on Kali in her various avatars as the ‘demon-slayer, lifesaver, supreme-mother, destruction-dancer’ in Brighton. Hennessey has also worked with Pandavani performer Ritu Verma.
A Successful Show!
Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo
Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo
Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo
A beautifully crafted poster of our show alongside sacred waters and nature.
A Review in the Telegraph
Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo
Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo
As the pandemic looms, Team OGLAM premiered the newest outdoor theatre version of Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo.
The Premiere
Paramahansa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo
The Premiere
A write-up and scene from our show. Check out our photo gallery (below) for more scenes from this event.
It's Showtime!
OGLAM-Bally Member
OGLAM-Bally Member
On Oct. 18th, 2020, OGLAM-Bally staged our latest Katha 'Koli production inspired by the Sambandhanuga Bhakti Sadhana of Sri Ramakrishna entitled, "Paramahamsa: Ek Vyakulatar Goppo" at the Chaar Mandir Ghat of Milani Club. This 40 min. show enchanted everyone as the masculine experienced the feminine embodiment!
OGLAM-Bally Member
OGLAM-Bally Member
OGLAM-Bally Member
OGLAM-Bally recognizes member Vidyapati Chakraborty. Since 2004, he has worked in theatre both locally in Howrah and throughout India, as well as abroad in Bangladesh and Nepal. In 2009, he was a panel artist for ICCR Bangladesh. He holds a Bsc in Zoology and a Master's in Drama from Rabindra Bharati University. Alongside his prospering theatre career, he also works as a pharmacist for CESC Limited in Kolkata.
OGLAM-Bally Member
Debasish Halder joined OGLAM-Bally in July, 2019. He is an Economics student at Bhawanipur University. He is also a director, a playwright and a poet. He resides in Kolkata.
OGLAM-Bally Member
Sanchaita Das is a multi-talented actress who has acted in numerous theatrical performances as well as characters in TV serials and in Web series for Colors Bangla, Zee5 and Sun Bangla. She holds a BA in Journalism/Communications from Univ. at Calcutta and an MA in Journalism/Communications from Rabindra Bharati Univ.
OGLAM-Bally Member
Mainak Ghosh has been with OGLAM-Bally for 3 1/2 years. He has a larger than life personality and is a very talented actor who loves sharing stories on starry nights amid constellations and exploring all that life has to offer!
OGLAM-Bally Member
Mohima Sarkar, views acting as her passion; it was originally a way of therapy for her anxiety. She studies English Literature at Calcutta University. A quote from the looking-glass through which she sees life is, "What's ordinary to others is special to me. Whereas what's special to others is very ordinary to me."
OGLAM-Bally Member
Narendranath Saha Bhowmick is a long-time member of OGLAM-Bally. He most recently starred in Paramahamsa: Ek Vyakulatar. He resides in Kolkata where he also did his university studies.