One might argue that my characters more often than not are veiled by a bacchanalia. Not to mention that they are precariously trampified.
These trampified characters are always ambiguous, not representatives of political positions but rather caught between classes and thus in a opportune position for undermining the presumed solidity of the social order and it’s tropes.
With and post ‘Masakali; Dancing Pigeons’, my Poetic Plays became models of reality, constructed worlds of play that aimed to make reality visible after it has become functional, common sense and almost second-nature.
I operate on a hunch that my texts are capable of contesting themselves and their audience by violating accepted stereotypes of vision, feeling and judgment.
These contestations are imagined in the human organism's breath, body, and inner impulses proving them to be cruelly jarring.
I do not have any moral obligations to do so.
Some argue though, that I feel an immense love. And am just fearful of my capacity for compassion. But that just might be my Typical Indian Mother guiled by optimism.
It is an aggressive schadenfreude.
OOPS.
The kettle whistled.
The incense smoked on.
She stood,
Bent over
Between me
And the hob.
Her chin rested
On the granite;
Moist with perspiration
And tears.
Her mascara ran down.
Black like char.
She bit into
A cigarette.
Propped up
By her lips.
She lit
And puffed at it.
Right there
With and by the flame.
Of the stove.
Invigoratingly squeezing
Onto two pricks.
The primary intention for me to provide a framework that created our interim ensemble at and its production series ‘Parding your Beggon’, was to imbibe in us a methodology of discovery rather than definition. I wished for us to discover, rather commence discovering ourselves as writers, dramaturgs and directors, spatial and costume designers, film makers, composers, and performers rather than define ourselves as anything in particular.
This discovery was complimented by an attempt at understanding the promiscuity of our own selves as contemporary artists and creators.
“a personal process which is not supported and expressed by a formal articulation and disciplined structuring of the role is not a release and will collapse in shapelessness.”
- Jerzy Grotowski
Through the series ‘Parding your Beggon’, and its performance presentations namely ‘Plums in Tar’, ‘Lady Bug’ and ‘Puddings in Limbo’, I wanted to introduce our discoveries to ourselves and our artistic colleagues. It was a litmus test for us, as we geared ourselves towards performing at Teatro Aberto in Lisbon.
We were to gauge where each of us lie in the entire spectrum as artists, thinkers and simply as sentient beings. We orchestrated ourselves into a system of not only finding overlaps between each other aesthetically and philosophically but also activating each of our muses.
We all have our muses.
One of us writes to a muse. One of us visualises and paints to one. One of us composes and arranges sounds to another, and last but not the least each one of us designs to one. My intentionality was to allow us to communicate our respective personal equations with our muses. I collaborated to script, narrate, rewrite and retell various situations and scenes. I learnt and orchestrated the crafting of the visual medium spatially and tectonically. I decided to allow our ergonomic and chorographical textures to inform my dramaturgical and our collective material experiments. In the end, I sought to create an ensemble of artists, inspired by an ensemble of reciprocal muses and causality.
As Mark Genz suggests hope is belief in the “plausibility of the possible” as opposed to the “necessity of the probable.”
This belief brought the seven of us together. The seven of us came together with specific intents. I brought with myself my desire to perform the verses and poetry that I craft within the framework of devised theatre. Charon Hu was inclined towards the idea of liminality as an epistemic, ontological and spatial inquiry. Farah Aly wished to dabble into visualising spaces based on a certain philosophy, narrative, her passion for poetry and Sufism. Both Jingxuan Lai and Neha Bola were interested in spatial and tectonic design. Jieming Lan wished to experiment with costume in the realm of performance and as an anchor for dramaturgy.
One pre-emptive question that I raised, as a matter of fact continue to do so is whether a narrative needs to completely resolve itself to be able to be consumed by an audience.
IT JUST BUGS ME IS ALL.
As a director there is something incomparably intimate and productive in the work with the troupe entrusted to me. They must indeed be available, acute, confident and free, for my labour with them is to explore their possibilities and facilities to the utmost.
Their trajectory is attended by reflection, astonishment, and a desire. My growth is projected onto them, or rather, is found in them - and our common growth becomes revelation.
Through this the phenomenon of ‘shared or double birth’ becomes possible.
We collaborate to make each other look good.