THE TIME IS NOW: A Course on Live Art
THE
TIME IS NOW: A
Course on Live Art
Participant
reflections on sessions – a running course blog
31st May –
8th July 2022
6 weeks, 12 days, 24
sessions
Designed and led by Amitesh Grover
Teaching Assistant - Tanvi Shah
A Serendipity Arts Foundation Initiative
1) PARTICIPANTS SAMEER WALZADE and DR.
KRISHNA MAHAWAR
on SABIH AHMED (INDIA/DUBAI)’s session:
“A De-anatomy of
Performance Art”
3rd
June, 2022
Talk description: “How
would we trace the genealogy of performance art through a new paradigm of the
body, space and time? This talk takes as its point of departure a growingly
complex field of embodiments and disembodiments where subjects are re-embodied in
virtual avatars, bodies are embedded with machines, and spaces extend across a
matrix of devices, institutions and environments. By critically examining some
of the foundational concepts that underpin performance art, namely the body,
event, (live) action and site, the talk explores the emergent politics of
prosthesis, mediation, transition and transformation towards a de- anatomy of
performance art.”
Documentary
photographer and filmmaker Sameer Walzade’s personal essay:
“‘A De-Anatomy of Performance Art’ is what Sabih Ahmed was going to speak on. ‘Interesting, but what exactly does that mean?’, I thought to myself.
As we connected from across the world, on our digital devices, I began to understand what Sabih
was trying to tell us. Thoughts began to run through my mind, including
but not limited to -
I’m a photographer and over the years, my camera has become an extension of me. So much so that I feel uncomfortable when I head out in the world without a camera on me - it feels like a part of me is missing. It helps me remember when I document/film moments for myself, and it also helps me help others remember, as I get commissioned for documentary work. So is it an integral part of my physical, as well as my mental being? And then what about the photos that come out of it - does the hard disk they are stored on, or the paper they are printed on further become an extended part of me?
Beyond this, Sabih spoke about the aspect of gender being performative, and also about the various regimes of power that exist right from the moment a child is brought into this world.
What I have taken out of the talk is that the world is oriented in, and defined in ways that are integral to the manner of functioning of the world as we know it. Artists who aspire to change the world confront, and question the current definition of ‘reality’ as it exists, and the method in which they demonstrate their question are ‘performing’ the role they are meant to - and hence performance art.
Finally, being a movie buff, there are a few movies I have watched in the past; which I would revisit after this talk & this new perspective that Sabih gave us - I would love more recommendations from others that I should watch/listen to/experience. Including a few of my recommendations below:
Sameer
Walzade, Mumbai
Multi-disciplinary
artist and Painting Professor Dr. Krishna Mahawar’s notes:
“Since last few years “The Body”, which was treated as natural object is no longer the same and has been radically rethought by both science and philosophy. The body is actually a cultural representation, constructed by various media. These were the learnings of mine which I learned from a very interesting session by Sabih Ahmed, Associate Director and Curator at the Ishara Art Foundation in Dubai.
I personally came to know about this term “Live Art” around eight-nine years ago when I witnessed an art festival organized by KHOJ, and saw a Glass House Project in NSD and few more… All these increased my interest towards new mediums of art expressions in today’s time. In continuity of my learnings this course is so helpful. Particularly the session of Sabih Ahmed was so meaningful in such a manner that he discussed not about the “Anatomy” of performance art but the “De-Anatomy” of performance art. This was so exciting for me to listen. He showed few visuals to make a strong statement of his views.
Sabih started his lecture with the fundamentals of
performance art live body, live action, site etc. Though he has a long
association with theoretical formulations on this, that’s why he was looking so
confident and well prepared while talking about political and conceptual
concepts of performance art and also about liveness, performativity,
embodiment, disembodiment etc.
1. - In Performance Art the Body is the medium.
2. - In performance art Live action is the medium.
3. - Performance art itself is a medium.
As the term ‘Medium” plays an important role in live art so
he tried to elaborate it by defining as a method or an instrument.
“There are naked and clothed bodies, healthy and diseased bodies, diminished muscular bodies, heroic bodies, sacrificial bodies, dead bodies, possessed bodies, part bodies, supernatural bodies, heavenly bodies, geometric bodies etc., it means the body has its own language” – The Body by Dani Cavallaro
Sabih also discussed Gender performativity. I already knew a little about this as I attended several seminars based on Gender Biasness and inequality. So had some idea about it but the “Performativity” aspect of Gender was quite new and thrilling for me to think on. What is a male body, what is a female body, both are linked to biological facts but if we talk about the gender, it belongs to cultural aspect and it is performed in a way. Body is given but the gender is sculpted and casted. He elaborated different kind of body projections in his lecture also. On these various projections he interacted with participants and gave them a chance to put their views.
It was so interesting to know that in recent years this has been redefined by the claim that the physical form is not a natural reality but a cultural concept: a means of encoding a society’s value through its shape, size and ornamental attributes as well as speech, behaviour, cloths also. Lots of visions are there to see and define a body – like a medical vision, static vision, legal vision, cast vision according to him. The body can be used as a metaphor to describe a nation, its territory, and its political structure and hierarchies.
In his next statement he said if the body is constructed then it may not universal as it differs accordingly. He helped every listener to understand the de-assemblage of body by giving the example of standardized alphabets. Different body parts signifies different things. He elaborated it by the example of hands via sharing works of Lorenza Böttner’s work. While performance artists reject the commodity and the object in favour of the body, there are exceptions like Indian performance artist Nikhil Chopra ending his performance mostly by making a hand drawing.
Sabih also showed Bhagwati Prasad’s work “It is the wave and the ocean” and Stephen Hawking’s image. He wanted to let us deeply understand that the contemporary time has completely changed as our mobile has become our extended hands these days. We have digital limbs and telescopic limbs now. Our dependency on electronic gadgets are increasing. Nowadays various part of one’s anatomy can be rebuilt through cosmetic surgery. Similarly in the cyber world, people actually change their identities as easily as we would change our clothes.
I was so overwhelmed by listening his lecture and it really updated me and my knowledge of contemporary arts.”
Dr. Krishna Mahawar, Jaipur
2)
PARTICIPANT
MANISH RUPAREL
on AMITESH GROVER
(INDIA)’s session:
“Framing The
Contemporary”
3rd
June, 2022
Talk description: “A
contemporary survey of the theatre landscape of India, while looking at
emerging new languages, concerns, and ways of practicing theatre.”
Performance Artist and Filmmaker Manish Ruparel’s session notes:
“Amitesh begins with contextualising Indian-ness and the contemporary in modern Indian theatre. His initial topics immediately resonate with me since I have been thinking about how art in post-colonial India has always been a response to the nation’s needs, struggles and dreams, as compared to a lot of western art that I have recently come across which mainly indulge in self-expression. He starts with the different theatre movements that rose across India post-independence - NSD and Alkazi bringing ideas from Europe to India and changing theatre from a hobby to a profession, Theatre of Roots by practitioners like Habib Tanvir & MK Raina among others and the emergence of female directors in the 90s like Arundhati Nag, Anamika Haksar, Anuradha Kapoor and Neelam Mansingh.
He passionately goes on to talk about these movements in great detail and in ways I wouldn’t have thought of otherwise, like the introduction of materials on stage by female directors. He talks about Modernism and Contemporary in the context of July 24, 1991 & the failed nation project and how we contextualise it in art today. He raises questions about the Contemporary and gives us the space to find answers to them. What is contemporary and who are we contemporary of? With examples from modern Indian theatre, he presents ideas on contemporary and introduces us to the works of modern day theatre makers who present, challenge and define the Contemporary today.
In many ways, his talk grounds me in a
cultural background and provides me with a framework to position my work in or
out of this context. It also serves as a gateway for deeper discourses about
live art and makes me aware of art currently being practiced in different parts
of the country.”
Manish Ruparel, Mumbai
3)
PARTICIPANT
LAKSHMI VENKATARAMAN
on RANJANA DAVE (INDIA)’s session:
“Improvised
Futures: Encountering the Body in Performance”
7th June,
2022
Talk description: “In an
atmosphere of growing authoritarianism, how can we draw attention to
performance as a transaction of sensorial agency – the right to be seen, heard,
recognized – the right to be palpable? Improvised Futures: Encountering the
Body in Performance attempts to frame performance as doing, as fraught
negotiations of agency and identity. As it considers the performative effect of
a range of ideas, actions and situations that have shaped society and defined
cultural expression since the 1990s, it frames the body as a site of radical
imagination. This lecture frames the process of constructing and assembling the
volume across space and time, using its materiality to consider how bookmaking
might be a form of performance. How does one cast a range of distinct texts and
artworks by artists, academics and activists in conversation with each other,
in order to elicit new meanings and connections? What immediate and long- term
questions and desires does a volume of this sort gesture to? How is the book rehearsed
into its material form by authors, arguments, stories, dilemmas and the
labour of its makers? These are some of the questions this lecture explores,
followed by a discussion.”
Arts Manager Lakshmi V writes an essay
titled “Book as an assemblage of text,
images, movement and body”:
The texts are taken at the moment and speak directly about the tensions in time without contextualizing them for what happened next. Using the mirror as a device was interesting. Playing with juxtapositions in images and texts allows us to re-examine the text and brings in contextuality through the experience of viewing the book. Little elements like the personal motifs taken from Ranjana’s notes added a personal touch. The book made me rethink body and movement and how it is perceived; the gaze through the last sections of the body, text and voice merging in the digital space. The play with the skeleton filter on Instagram, thinking through the lockdown, highlighted the time we are in currently.
The session had me thinking about a
body with movement in a protest, queering bodies and other identities, bodies
and identities in popular culture, what is legal, and the impacts of the ban of
performances, especially on the bar dancers – with the intersection of caste,
power and violence, bodies inside structures of institutions and how it moulds
to fit/break the bodies embodying a voice – the performance of these bodies
through the text, how these texts alter gaze, and perspectives when aligned in
a stacked manner. The text was a piece of art by itself – and how mediums can
move around and play.
Artist and Arts Space Manager Shreeya Kishanpuria’s detailed
essay goes:
“On December 16, 2014,
Taliban fighters stormed an army-run primary and secondary school in Peshawar
killing 150 people, of whom at least 134 were students. I remember walking into
the rehearsal studio the next morning unable to move. The body had just given
up. How could I dance after encountering such devastating news?
That was just the beginning of what would eventually come to be a permanent resident in my body and mind; the looming question of the larger purpose of one’s art in times of difficult political and social climate. Does showcasing art in a gallery filled with critics and patrons and chatting away with glee fulfill any purpose in a war-torn world?
So, SAF’s session with Ameet Parameswaran was most exciting especially considering how politically charged the world around us is currently. And to understand what, then, is our role as artists. How can we use art to articulate through our bodies and respond to the situations around us?
What is a political
performance anyway? Janez Janša says that the politicalness of a performance
lies in admitting into the public sphere voices that can otherwise not be
heard. And how do these voices find that space on stage? Ameet’s session
revolved around understanding precisely this; the stage of theatre becoming a
space of testimony and witnessing. The talk discussed the works of Yuyachkani
and Anna Deavere Smith that articulate the political through varied strategies
of staging of self and persona.
Dr. Ameet Parameswaran is Assistant Professor, Theatre and Performance Studies at the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University, and is currently undertaking research at the University of Cologne as Humboldt Foundation Fellow. His areas of research interest include political theatre and performance, performance historiography, theatrical/performance exchanges, region studies; body, technology and performance.
Ameet talks about
exciting changes taking place in the field of contemporary performances,
especially in the 21st century citing the emergence of range of practices in
the field, like documentary theatre/verbatim theatre. His work is specifically
invested in theatre & performance studies. And the questions that arise in
field differs largely from other fields even though they may be looking at the
same object or have a shared history. So then, what meaning do the terms
presence, staging hold in field of theatre as compared to other fields like
visual arts?
Coming to the area of documentary theatre that has grown extensively in Germany especially in the post WW-II era. The question of who, what, why & when is put on stage as a document to take on the violence that happened head on and to hold people accountable/responsible.
But why are we engaged in the idea of documentary theatre in a live art course? This takes us to the beginning of performance studies and its three possible strands of conceptual thinking – performance, performativity, body art.
Performance – as different from theatre. Theatre is one instance of theatre. But performance goes beyond the limiting term of theatre. There’s ritual performance, sports, games. So, a wide range of phenomena in India & around the world that didn’t really fit into the idea of “theatre” let to the coinage of the term performance which is a universal word, an ‘umbrella’ for multiple disciplines.
Performativity – has a very specific
history and genealogy. It is actually quite different from performance studies
and finds its roots in philosophy, linguistics and other kinds of thinking but
intersects with performance in interesting ways.
Ameet gives us a brief introduction to performativity which he hopes will help us think in new directions.
He mentions the book – ‘How
to do things with words?’
J.L. Austin, the author
of the book, makes a very simple point. He says linguists around the world
failed to highlight a simple problem we face.
Everything we say can be
divided into two categories.
One, is constative.
Constatives represent those utterances which are used to describe or report
something which, accordingly, can be either true or false. So, statements like
‘it is raining’, would come to called constative sentences.
Two, is performative. A performative utterance does not describe or report an action, rather it is the whole or partial act or action itself. It is the performing of the action as contrasted with constatives which may report or describe an action. Because of this feature, it is not the kind of utterance which can be true or false as is the case with constatives. Say, for example, when a couple says ‘I DO’ in a wedding ceremony. The utterance renders them husband and wife.
Interestingly, there are also cases of performative utterances going void in case certain conditions aren’t met. Take the instance of a mad man renaming a house. The statement is void since the house does not belong to him.
Austin, then goes on to
mark an exception. Theatre! Well he calls it parasitic theatre, where every
utterance is performative. An actor putting on a crown becomes a king, people
stab each other to death. But these are all illusions. Actions or utterances
that have no real effect.
Derrida, however, begged to differ and reversed the logic. He tried to understand why theatre actually exists. It is because of certain kind of iteration that happens on stage.
Performativity, too, is about iterations. Judith Butler takes it further from there from utterances into our everyday practices, including gender and how it is a ritualized practice. A stylized repetition of the acts.
Gender according to Butler is the process of embodying the norm. And it is only when we fail to ‘DO’ the norm correctly or ‘DO’ it differently, do we realize that a norm exists. This understanding helps us decipher cultural, racial, identity performativity – not given but embodied in the act of doing itself.
The moment we bring theatre into the discussion is when things become even more complicated and which is what makes documentary theatre so interesting to think about politics of utterance.
Body
Art –
The third strand, which has primarily come from visual arts and the efforts to
destabilise gallery spaces. A lot of practices and performers in the 21st
century have chosen to move away from early body art practices and moved into
more theatrical zones. Think Marina Abramovic who moved into gallery spaces and
also delved into theatrical zones of re-enactments of her own work and other
important art pieces.
Something interesting is happening in theatre that are raising all sorts of important question.
Ameet’s talk then looked at examples of Documentary/ Verbatim theatre which involves performances where speaking is at the heart of it. Something is being voiced, someone is voicing it in flesh & blood and where the idea of authenticity exists.
The first footage we
looked at was one of earlier works of Anna Deavere Smith called ‘Fires in The
Mirror’.
Fires in the Mirror:
Crown Heights, Brooklyn and Other Identities (1992)
is a one-person play that explores the Crown Heights riot of
August 1991 and its aftermath through the viewpoints of African-American and
Jewish people, mostly based in New York City, who were connected directly and
indirectly to the riot.
The play is
composed of monologues from transcripts of the interviews she conducted with
the people whom she portrays in the play. She interviewed more than 100
individuals in the course of creating this play. And through the play, she
embodies them all.
The second work we looked at is set against the backdrop of armed conflict that broke out in Peru between 1980 and 2000. Created by Ana Correa & performed in public marketplaces throughout Peru, the piece is called Rosa Cuchillo. It is considered to be one of the most important performances in the process of reconciliation post the unrest.
Rosa Cuchillo is a mother searching for her disappeared son even beyond death, wandering the netherworlds. Her return to earth seeks to harmonize life and, through dance, help people to let go of their fear and begin healing their oblivion.
The audiences that watched Rosa, began interacting with this persona. They refused to talk to the state. They weren’t even interacting with Ana Correa, the performer. They were voicing their fears and their stories to the persona Rosa Cuchillo.
Now look at the two
examples studied. Two radically different performance ideas. One, an embodiment
of real testimonies and witnesses. The other, a complete fictional character, a
dead woman. A performer and a persona. It’s interesting to see how people gave
to this persona an authenticity/truthfulness that they wouldn’t even give to real
characters.
Questions pour in as Ameet chooses to end his talk here leaving room for much to be deciphered and much more to be unraveled. He shares with us two opposing ends of a performing spectrum in the form of two examples listed above and opens the space for discussions and debate.
What is the role of a live audience? What is the truth of a performance?
I begin thinking about
the friends of Shaheen Bagh & those affected by the hijab controversy. I
think about the CAA. And the freedom of speech.
I also think about artists like Mandeep Raikhy, Surjit Nongmeikapam, Maya Rao. An artist carries with him the power to change, the power to communicate, the power to uplift, the power to open channels.
This course pertains to studying performance and live art academically. The mediums, techniques, history... but as an artist myself, I cannot help but reflect on the choices one makes in his pursuit of art.
‘To admit into public
sphere, voices that shall otherwise not be heard.’
While protest art is the need of the hour, I also think that maybe practice of art in any form in itself becomes a form of resilience and resolution.”
Shreeya
Kishanpuria, Jaipur
Artist and Art Educator Tasneem Lohani’s summary and takeaways:
“Our 8th session was with artist Janez Janša.
He shared with us a past project of his wherein he along with his two artist
friends changed their birth names in 2007 to that of Janez Janša, the then
three times prime minister of Slovenia.
All their legal documents, passports, driving license, bank card and even their birth certificates were changed to the name Janez Janša. While in this role he even applied to be a prime minister candidate for Slovenia alongside the politician Janez Janša. This of course confused many voters as to who to vote for and how to differentiate.
From then till now he has changed his name once back to his birth name and again back to Janez Janša.
I was most fascinated by this answer. It brings to light the many ways an artistic performance can unfold. As well as the seriousness with which an artist has taken upon a project where his personal life is no different from his artistic life. Changing one's identity without a government's approval could be a crime while changing your identity with the government's approval is not so much a crime. It is fascinating how this project brings to light the various ideas of institutionalised personhood and what it means to belong to a name that becomes your identifier on all legal documents, one that can prove whether one is really Janez or not. One can say one is Janez but not actually be. And funnily this 'being' is defined by text on a paper.
And so it becomes even funnier when the three artists who changed their names to Janez Janša were declared dead by one of the research institutes of fine arts texts. When they are actually alive. But of course, maybe the paperwork is mixed up.”
Tasneem
Lohani, Bangalore
6)
PARTICIPANTS
ROHIT AGARWAL and SAMEER WALZADE
on AMITESH GROVER (INDIA)’s session and the group discussion after:
“Curating
Trouble”
14th
June, 2022
Talk description:
“Curating theatre and live art festivals in India.”
“As the title suggests, the session by Amitesh Grover was a pedagogical discussion on curation of theatre festivals in India.
Plays are mostly selected through open calls asking for video submissions of prior performances, next an appointed team of experts makes the long list and the head jury filters through and shortlists the final selection. There is hardly any way to decipher the criteria or the "intent" behind the selection. There are rarely permanent or totally dedicated curators loyal to these festivals. Now, the question arises, what is the curator's role in the scheme of things?
As curators, they have a duty towards art/artists and towards the audience as well. There are also the expectations of the organizers who are looking for them to give the highest of results with inevitably the lowest of budget as per the requirements. Navigating through these, they have to find a way to keep art first, live through hiccups and negotiate with the different networks to keep the festival living. Also, as a curator one has to tap into the various expectations and dare to sometimes go against them, both in favour of ethics and aesthetics. Amitesh states, "Curation has to be most often not taken as a conceptual model but rather as a speculation"
Further, a curator should look for the meta narrative that comes out of all the individual programs the festival is built on. It's the curator's role to bring in different live works and make them interact with each other. A good practice is to avoid having a theme to the festival, which interestingly most often negates the role of curators themselves who insist upon it. Also, important is the instinct, which is unique to every curator, combined with the ethical choices they make in the journey through the festival. Lastly, apart from the practical and aesthetic aspects, in a way, both a radical and a mild change is what eventually a curator is looking for.”
Reference:
Amitesh Grover, "THERE WILL BE
TROUBLE" TURBA, Volume 1, Issue 1, March, 2022, https://www.berghahnjournals.com/view/journals/turba/1/1/turba010109.xml
Documentary photographer and filmmaker Sameer Walzade’s discussion documentation:
“It was fascinating reading about
Amitesh’s curating experience at the ITFoK 2020, and then hearing him speak
about it in his session.
Amitesh acknowledges being in a unique position as someone
having multiple identities as that of an artist, teacher & curator; and
also realises that these identities are constantly merging with each other. And
so, as a curator, he believes that he has a duty toward art & also toward
the artist. He says that in the face of resistance, he always remembers to keep
putting art forward & believes in continuously finding ways to do that.
On the topic of categorising audiences for a festival,
Amitesh mentioned that as a curator, he wants to both, tap into the
expectations of the audience, and also find ways to go against these
expectations to show them something new. As an example, he mentioned an art
festival where all the relevant stakeholders were asked about what they would
like to see at the festival, and the entire festival was designed based on
these inputs only to go down as one of the most disappointing editions of that
festival.
Amitesh also gave us his perspective when it came to having
popular faces as part of the festival - he said that one has to be very careful
otherwise it might tilt the balance of the festival in an unintended manner. If
a popular face is going to be a part of the festival, there needs to be a
strong reason, and a fit with the theme of the festival too.
We understood that the role of a curator is not just picking
and choosing art for a festival, but also aligning all stakeholders,
understanding expectations and also setting expectations to a large degree. One
is always struggling against time, budgets & an availability of resources,
so one needs to be in touch with ground realities of the art world to be able
to pull off a successful art festival.
It is also important to understand and set the expectations
of the artist, not just when it comes to showcasing of their work, but also
when it comes to all touch points of interaction - which will also include
travel & logistics. And so for a curator, everything matters when it comes
to planning and holding an art festival.
As a curator of ITFoK, Amitesh studied previous editions of
the festival to understand where the festival has been, and curated the 2020
edition such that it acknowledges & the part editions of the festival and
also drives it forward - basically, building on what it has been and
also evolving it.
On the topic of originality, Amitesh advised that while it
is very tempting for new artists to chase originality, the key parameters to
focus on are hard work & practice. He said that after years of doing this
is when originality starts showing up in an artist’s work. Amitesh encourages
everyone to follow artists & track the progress of their work to understand
how their experiences in life manifested in their art practice. He also
strongly believes in building relationships with other artists and exchanging
ideas, as a tool to develop yourself and the art eco-system.”
Sameer Walzade, Mumbai
7)
PARTICIPANT
ANIMA GOYAL
on INDRANJAN BANERJEE (INDIA)’s session:
“Locating
Liveness – through the Khoj archives”
17th
June, 2022
Talk description: “As Indranjan looks through the Khoj
archives of Khoj's Live Arts and Performance Art programming, a history emerges
of practices in India and South Asia in the last decade or so, that
interrogates liveness, acts of performance making and embodiment through
various contexts and lenses and within it situates the affective. Indranjan
will become an archive narrator of Live Arts at Khoj, articulate Khoj's more recent
curatorial direction with Live Arts and in the process bring forth propositions
on Liveness.”
Painter Anima Goyal’s summary of and subsequent questions from Indranjan’s session:
“Indranjan did a survey of the Khoj archives in the context of residencies and live art festivals, the early processes through which the curatorial framework and the very meaning of “live art” developed at Khoj. He took us through the relationships of the local histories of classical theatre and dance, with how live art was understood at the time in the context of India and South Asia through various individual art practices. This opened up questions beyond the body, the materials that inform the body than it being the material itself, in relation to space and time. The very site, the geography of Khoj becomes important here as well, which is an “inside/outside” space in an urban village in Delhi, and we saw glimpses of public practices that have shaped the community in Khirki extension over the years.
He talked about the shifts in documentation owing to the technological constraints and the decay of a passage of time, where what remains is fragmentary, an ‘unorganized archive’ that I found fascinating. Some of the present understandings were put together through conversations, the stories and memory of someone who had witnessed the performances. Are these peripheral oral histories also an archival object? Could these conversations also become a part of the archives, when there is very little audio-visual evidence left for the early work? Giving an example of the little comments left on the catalogues that were used in the programming of a particular performance, we see other layers that go into making of the work (such as the guidelines for an audience), that add another layer to the context of the time and space it took place in. What has remained, but also: what has been lost from the memory? What can an archive ‘hold’? Especially if a medium resists documentation in some ways? These are a few questions I am trying to answer, while working at an archive that is of a different nature but the questions are similar, given an archive remains incomplete.
Anima Goyal, Haryana
8)
PARTICIPANT
ANIMA GOYAL
on FLORIAN MALZACHER (GERMANY)’s session:
“Theatre As
Assembly”
21st
June, 2022
Talk description: “While recent months
have told us an intense lesson on how to gather in the virtual world, theatre
as well as democracy depends also on physical encounters, on assembled bodies,
on shared space and time to discuss, struggle, demand, agree and disagree. Theatre
– as the art of assembly per se – can offer agonistic arenas to act out
differences and to create common ground. Florian Malzacher gives an insight
into own curatorial projects such as “Training for the Future” (together with
Jonas Staal) as well as into many other assemblies on the thin line between
art, activism and politics.”
““What does an artist
do in a revolution?” is the sentence I am thinking through, over a week after
Florian’s talk has ended. He introduced the ideas of participation,
representation in the context of the relationships that exist between art and
politics, and through this, we thought through what theatre can be (or perhaps
should be?). Through various examples of performances in various contexts
across Europe within the recent decade, he questioned the role that an assembly
plays, and rethinking the very form of an ‘assembly’ itself, where it is not
merely the content that we think about, but also the form of theatre is
political. He talks about the theatricality of assembled bodies that come
together in a space, where their hands signs or different aspects of repetition
have their performative aspects. There are differences between gatherings in
activism and in theatre, where there is a space of authenticity in the former,
ways of decision-making are lived experiences, but in the case of theatre, it
is simultaneously an authentic space and a fictional realm that resists the
real. What sort of tension does this in-between-ness has? The experience of
participation also mirrors this tension in a way, where we wonder whether we
are a part of something that pretends to be participation.
I found this in-between space
interesting, that exists between reality and fiction, and how the audience
participation is experienced in some forms of theatre. This made me think about
the in-between space that exists in the experience of reading or watching a
translation as well, where one is negotiating with a “real” and a dream-world
at the same time. I will be taking his idea of pre-enactment into my approach
towards bookmaking, which plays with the idea of re-enactment but of something
“that hasn’t happened yet”, but something that is perhaps longed for.”
Anima Goyal, Haryana
9)
PARTICIPANT
SHREYA ROY
on BOJANA JANKOVIĆ (UK/SERBIA)’s session:
“Foreign
Elements: Migrancy as a Performance Strategy”
24th June,
2022
Talk description: “This lecture will
explore the intersections of performance and migration: we will investigate how
migrancy becomes a methodology and an aesthetic, and consider how migrants
disrupt art infrastructures. The session will draw on examples from Bojana’s
own as well as the work of other migrant artists and attempt to position
migrant practice as an artistic discipline and a political statement.”
Performing Arts student Shreya Roy writes:
“Studying Performing Arts, I often try to make sense of how politics
drive art or if that is everything that we understand as art is political.
Politics with all its positive and negative vices as it frames our historical
and situational existence in an autocratic intrusiveness by the body governing
the power of the state. Migrancy is one of the most aversive political
consequences among many others, which is suffered by the citizens. The act of
leading to and lending forceful identity, jeopardising the root of belonging
and baffled by being homeless is where the politics on the voiceless and over
the resistance voices are played on.
In the particular lecture session by Bojana Janković, East European UK based
artist, as she explores immigration, national and displacement identities,
migrant labour and form of discrimination in her artistic practises, she poured
in to the idea of performance reality benefitted by the performer as a migrant.
She suggests how the idea of migrancy deeply penetrates into its cultural and
artistic structures, how it can be adapted followed by its challenges and
finally appropriated. Identifying oneself as a migrant and adopting a foreign
air of survival is beyond its legal and bureaucratic hassles that one has to
undergo because the very ‘feeling of displacement’ is controlled by the not only
physical but also the structure of the cultural infrastructure. Moreover, the
state's cultural, political and colonised history controls the citizens’
settlements in respect of their identities to where they live. That being said,
it necessarily does not mean that someone is not a migrant as they were born in
the particular land they're living in.
Legal systems of cultural infrastructure influences “how we are and who we are”
stirring a conflict in the migrants’ mind and body with their physical presence
on stage.
Eastern Europeans for Dummies [2011- 2016]
The studio performance evokes the generational prejudice and marginalisation
incurred upon the East Europeans. This show in a way lectured about two East
Europeans, one includes Bojana herself. In an anthropological outlook they
narrated the representation of marginalisation provoked by the West European
notions about the East Europeans- “that you are ruining the country and being
the political villain of the entire decade in England, if not the whole UK”.
This delta representation of West Europeans and their stereotypes were
performed and audienced by white British at large. Even though that was
acceptable by traditional cultural ideology that only the elitists section of
the population are to be the audience of performances, excluding other
Europeans. Such a situation led to the problem that the addressed audiences are
not having the chance to interact with this performance, which is apparently
about them. It led to the realisation that immigrants do not go to theatre or
performances as they hardly hear about their voices in the majority of the
performances, mainly dominated by the West Europeans.
Nothing Dance
Performed by Ruqeeya Izeya, a working class Bengali Muslim living in UK, who
presented the migrant and diasporas of identity, opposed by the tragedies they
experience highlighting the emerging pop culture of music aided by hybridity in
culture induced by art.
Trigger Warning [2017- 2019]
It was an installation piece which was set up in an art gallery that consisted of traditional British games-turned-immigrant stereotypes. The game ‘Hook a Duck’ which is perceived as to be economically low class associated with rural counterparts. Much like the generic fun of the game attached with a reward at the back of the duck one shall fish out from a water body, Bojana labelled them as immigrant passports, job, benefits and so on. East Europeans are often condemned in the name of stealing resources, employment in Europe, etc. The most intrinsic aspect of installing these games was they had non-artist invigilators who led the audience through the games as authentic immigrants.
Alicja Rogalska and the seasonal immigrant workers in Jersey
Jersey- an island at the coast of France is famous for growing national heritage potatoes, called the Royal potatoes. This is grown by East European migrant labourers as temporary farmers. Rogalska has taken a project that documented and archived the rigorous job of the migrant workers. It was fragmented into three parts- ‘The Royals’- the documentary short film narrating the sculpture workshops, with close-up shots of hands modelling the clay potatoes. Agri-Care, the prize awarded to the best immigrant employer annually that makes the best potato. The documentation of video and photographs of the labourers growing the potatoes was finally produced as an archive named, Alien Species.
Just Gibanica [2021]
Gibanica is a traditional Yugoslavian pastry- comfort and celebration food. Bojana performed this by simply baking and serving it to the audience, for free. But then it was up to the audiences how they shall pay for the pastries, are they supposed to pay her the artist fee or shall they pay for the maker of the raw food. In the larger context, this performance piece underlines to think and rethink the value of labour, both artistic and migrant.
She further delved into the ideas migrancy and its aligned discourse, by raising artistic examples that are ‘questioning and re-questioning what artistic and performative cannon is’ through Payam Sharifi and Kasia Korczak’s ‘Slavs and Tatters’ and Bojana’s ‘Ottoman Avant-Garde’, that was focused on decentering the local. She also put forth the issue of how migrant art practice eventually leads to migrant activism, e.g. ‘Transborder Immigrant Tool’ for those crossing the U.S.- Mexico borders, which delivered poetry and water supply indications.
Despite this session being mainly about migrancy through the lens of East Europeans dialogues of migration, the geo-political history holds up countless incidents of migration and inadequate share of resources. The limitations in adapting and ultimately belonging within a new structure of culture and artistic history, thereby breaking the traditional norms and appropriating one's own art overcoming all prejudice, biases and dominance by the one in power. Migrancy is not just about individual geographical and political developments surfaced by territories and stamped by identity cards, but also how the journey of new beginnings are aided by uninvited stereotypes, economic crisis and in most cases living with the designation of migrants, therefore reducing the effectiveness of offering a sense of home to the next generations. Therefore, how and how much these derogations find voices through art and look through the routes to belong within a culture that have access to all members of the society.”
Shreya Roy, Kolkata
10)
PARTICIPANT
BARNAMALA ROY
on AMITESH GROVER (INDIA)’s session:
“Performance in
the Expanded Field”
28th
June, 2022
Talk description: “Amitesh shares work
from his personal live art practice spanning performance, installation,
multimedia, and more, and talks about looking at performativity in an
interdisciplinary way.”
Writer, Educator, and Multimedia Storyteller Barnamala Roy’s personal essay in response, titled ‘The Obstinacy of Art and Mourning, and the Realm of Intuition’:
“The domain of intuition doesn’t make for exciting
scholarship.
IMAGINE A FAINT
UNCHANGING LIGHT UNLIKE ANY LIGHT YOU
CAN REMEMBER,
THAT IS YOUR SKY
FIND A WINDOW
TAKE KEEN INTEREST
IN ITS LENGTH WIDTH
DEPTH. PLACE
YOURSELF FULLY IN IT
I’ve
always been a believer in doing useless things.
CULTURAL COMPETENCE AND SENSITIVITY TO THE ZETGEIST DON’T COME WITH A
COLLEGE DIPLOMA OR LIVE IN AN ADMINISTRATOR’S BRIEFCASE. YOU NEED TO KNOW WHICH
WAY TO POINT THE MAP
We have to follow our intuition to see the world.
Words are
paper cutouts. You keep what you need for evidence, proof, agenda, validation, testimonial,
self-advocacy. The list goes on. The above excerpts – text cuts – some (in Italics)
from Amitesh Grover’s talk in The Time is Now: A Course on Live Arts,
some (ALL CAPS) from his installation work Velocity Pieces, some from
his personal readings (ALL CAPS BOLD) and
one from my own readings (Red Underline) seemed like
they can be adopted or appropriated – I don’t know which – for self-expression.
Scholars love to or have to cite in academic writings where footnotes and
bibliographies run long and deep. I’ve always been a little afraid of footnotes
and citations; they need too much conscious tedious plodding that’s
anti-intuition. (Intuition-led work needs plodding too but the plodding here is
often unconscious.)
Footnotes and citations are the hallmarks of scholarship. It demands that you
are disciplined, disciplinary, you further a school of thought, strengthen a
field of study. The unchanging LIGHT UNLIKE ANY LIGHT that can be remembered and which is
our/my sky (as suggested by the billboard) smacks of intuition. Is this sky a
school (of thought) or a field (of study)? Metaphors can be tricky. But
unwittingly or wittingly, metaphors or similes also metamorphose across disciplines
and turn into Gregor Samsas, fields become skies. Fields are plotted; skies
aren’t easy to plot (till now).
This line of thought takes me to what Grover discussed about words having
different connotations in the artworld and in the corporate sector (funny how I
typed ‘sector’ involuntarily after ‘corporate’. It’s muscle memory because I
spend part of my every day looking through marketing content for a living,
making sure that writers have adhered to the client brief and churned out
writing that is industry-specific.). Besides, Grover discussed ‘performance’ and its meanings for
artists making live art or performances and for corporate employees who must
perform every day to stick to their jobs. This, he discussed, while sharing
anecdotes from his project Kafka’s Castle which unfolded in a HCL Tech
Pvt. Ltd. office where he enrolled as an employee for six months. There are
bonuses or incentives for good performances when it’s a bull market (another
term I picked when looking through BFSI content); nothing for good performances
when it’s a bear market. But employees must keep on performing good employees
in the presence or absence of incentives. Aptly, Grover had written a small
treatise, which he then printed and handed out to employees in flyers to let
them know what it is to perform a good employee.
I’m very tempted to respond to the commandments in this treatise. So, I will.
Collapse, become indistinct or intentionally inverted.
Our semi-pet dog (semi because he lived downstairs in the apartment premises; pet because we looked after him without housing him) did this when asked to shift to a different spot for his siesta.
Oscillate between visibility and invisibility. Choose your moments, timing is of essence here.
This is how we perform during Zoom meetings, oscillating between visibility and invisibility, choosing our moments to apologize for our internet connection betraying us.
Persevere with useless tasks- dig a hole, then cover it. Walk in purposeful circularity.
Dogs and cats and I do this; the difference being that dogs and cats don’t think they are performing useless tasks; humans do. I do too (that is, think my task is useless) when I walk in purposeful circularity for some time and then see others leading linear lives. Self-criticism sternly knocks at the window: isn’t this circularity a luxury? Rebellion looks like luxury, at times.
Shift incessantly, in your chair, in a meeting, at lunch. Look nervous.
I remember shifting incessantly in my chair during monthly salary meetings with a CEO. It was a revolving chair, so I could swing from side to side too while shifting. Often, my face muscles contracted during the process till I had a smirk. I tried to un-smirk to not come across as a weirdo but then hoped that the CEO would confuse the smirk for a smile and give me brownie points for pleasantness. Because if I didn’t smirk, I would frown. These meetings activated either the muscles on my cheeks or my forehead.
Ask
questions. Pick out a detail, and obsess over it.
Okay, I don’t always ask questions but I always
question. But yes, I’m prone to picking out details and obsessing over them and
this is not always for the sake of performance. More often, due to the
obstinacy and purposeful circularity of following the unchanging
light or intuition.
Illustrate through abstraction.
I just did. In the sentence written in Bold for the last commandment.
Hesitate always.
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-
-
-
-
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While sharing snippets from another work, On Mourning (which was guided
by a personal loss – the death of his grandmother), Amitesh Grover talked about
opparis or traditional mourners in South India. Their songs of lament,
according to him, are not acts of purgation but acts of obstinacy. They
are indignant and they are fighting the Almighty, reprimanding the Almighty for
mercilessly snatching away the deceased person. Mourning, as performance, is
hence, obstinate. Like the intuition that often guides obstinate art.
Is art, like mourning, supposed to be an act of purgation? Is it supposed to
heal? Maybe those who create artworks should forget about them after their
making. Just like many who experience artworks produced by others to escape,
like going on a vacation. There are, of course, those who also have to
experience artwork for their vocation. Then, by and large, is making art and
experiencing art – both escapisms, if guided by intuition?
Velocity Pieces, On Mourning and Kafka’s Castle involve
participants and audiences – they invite response. Yet, they emphasize the
concerns of the creator, first and foremost. Not the concerns of the audience
or participants. They are guided by the artist – Amitesh Grover’s vision and intuition
and, if I may dare add, a pinch of obstinacy.
Table Radica and The Last Poet seem comparatively more
dependent on the immediate audience and not oblivious to whether the
performance/artwork is understood or not.
Table Radica was scripted with how the guests will experience an
archive and taste the dishes which are part of the performance in mind. It is a
feast and feasts are meant for guests, rather than audiences. The cuisines are
true to their traditions but as dishes, they provide the guests with a choice
to skip or go for a second helping. In The Last Poet which is
cyber-theatre building an immersive web through collaborations with creative
technologists, again, the audience’s experience plays a major role in the
design. There’s a poll that presents the audience with a choice: What would
like to hear about next? (not sure if these are the exact words)
Amitesh Grover had introduced the ideas that he pursues in his art and art
projects right at the beginning of the session. The idea of absence recurs
in his works, his works show a performance of resistance, he regards the site
of performance as the site of experiencing, articulating and collating
knowledge. I do not know if I have guided my ramblings in this piece with
how he situated/introduced his works. Probably I haven’t. Perhaps that makes me
a bad student who pursues random lines of thought that they latch on to from
what is presented and is pretty much led on by intuition than complete
understanding!
FIND A WINDOW
TAKE KEEN INTEREST
IN ITS LENGTH WIDTH
DEPTH. PLACE
YOURSELF FULLY IN IT
That is
perhaps how I have responded to the talk. Intuitively, part obstinately and a little
obsessively.”
Barnamala Roy, Kolkata
11)
PARTICIPANT
ANIMA GOYAL
on LOLA ARIAS (ARGENTINA)’s session:
“Theatre as a
Remake of the Past”
1st
July, 2022
Talk description: “Can art be a way to
revive the past? How do reality and fiction overlap? What can we understand
under the expression documentary art? What kind of writing processes enable
this type of project? In which ways is a play a living and autonomous organism?
Through videos and materials of her works, the Argentinian director Lola Arias
offers a videoconference talk about her experience in the field of documentary
art and interdisciplinary projects using theatre, film and visual arts in the
last decade. Arias will approach different aspects of the genesis and
development of her works, where she problematizes the relationship between
aesthetics and politics, reality and fiction, art work and social experiment.”
Painter Anima Goyal writes:
“Lola’s practice traverses theatre, literature, film and
poetry, making various portals between different (invisible) histories. The
unpredictability that is inherent in theatre has its own temporal dimension,
that she illustrated through a very interesting example of having a baby in one
of her plays that lead to the question of, a performer that cannot be
controlled or given instructions to. When the rehearsals involve the baby, what
is being rehearsed and is it possible to rehearse with a performer that cannot
perform? Which made me further wonder, how is a rehearsal different from a re-enactment?
Through her engagement with archives, she re-enacts
photographs; the material form turns into a performative act and comes alive
through screens, spoken word, and gestures. As the photographs are re-enacted
in a different time, they form memories and histories that could only be
accessed in this realm of re-enactment and therefore be lived. She touches on
this briefly through one of her works that re-enacts the story of a lost generation.
People that were killed or disappeared during the dictatorship, were made
visible through their sons and daughters re-enacting their memories, making a
bridge of sorts for two generations to understand each other. This
reconstruction of memory from a material in the context of an archive
fascinates me, where the photographs she used exist in a parallel time in her
performance, constantly moving between reality and fiction and forming
relationships that did not exist before but with the passage of time, they
became possible in the space of re-enactment that is more of an intervention
into the past of sorts. The archive becomes an active space of negotiation,
bonding, new relationships, an active document that takes on a new life
(particularly in her Theatre of War, where people who were previously enemies
formed in a new bond, as they were connected through the experience of it,
regardless of the side they were on).”
Anima Goyal, Haryana
12)
PARTICIPANT GAURAV SINGH NIJJER
on ERIN B. MEE (USA)’s session:
“Online Theatre in the
Time of Covid With Implications for the Future of Live Performance”
1st July, 2022
Talk description: “While online
performance is not new, COVID has offered a unique opportunity for theatre
makers around the world to move their work online, which has resulted in an
expansion of the theatre's dramaturgical structures, modes of engagement, and
foundational ideas about what theatre is and what it can do. Case studies are
taken from the United States, UK, Russia, and Argentina.”
Theatre maker, Creative
Technologist, Arts Manager Gaurav Singh Nijjer
reflects:
“There’s never been a moment of
reckoning for theatre and live performance as the one it's going through right
now. While one might argue that the theatrical medium has been in a constant
state of flux for the past 2,500 years and has had to adapt to the times it
found itself in – absurdist theatre in Europe found its feet in the post-war
40s and 50s while street theatre in India grew as a tool of political protest
against the state – there is something markedly different about what’s
happening now. When COVID-19 came to the fore in 2020, there was a singular
(and yet global trigger) for theatre-makers to stop, take a step back and
figure things out. From new dramaturgical structures, innovative modes of
engagement and conversations about what is theatre (and what is not) in the
post-COVID era, to new digital vocabulary and experience-driven storytelling,
we’re witnessing a shift in how theatre is conceived, created and consumed.
This is perhaps why theatre director and scholar Erin B Mee characterises the current ‘digital theatre’ movement
as a significant development where “truly experimental theatre is happening
after a long time”.
Then there’s the relationship between the performer(s) and the audience in this
new playground that rejects the conventional role of the viewer. Attention is
no longer assumed, it must be earned and negotiated. Growing digital fatigue
and screen lethargy has led to a renewed focus on engagement and participation
of the audience. Performances built around interactive elements – such as chat
box, whiteboard, polls, choose-your-own-adventure structures – are altering the
audience-performer dynamic as compared to in-person performances, where it's
enough to be a viewer at distance. The audience has a bigger stake in digital
performance, for now, they equally rely on themselves to set the stage (log
in), find their seat (tweak user settings) and participate in the
world-building (listen and interact).
As a theatre-maker whose artistic
practice lies at the intersection of performance, technology and interactive
experiences, I have grappled with these questions myself. From the early
‘experiments’ of (re)framing the stage for the screen to now designing bespoke
theatrical experiences created for the digital medium, I am glad that we are
now able to look back and examine these attempts with a more critical eye. What
felt like a defiant (and a bit frantic) response to theatre closures and
lockdown restrictions then has gradually transitioned into a global movement of
resilience, curiosity and exploration, one that has thrown the theatrical
‘rulebook’ out of the (virtual) window. What awaits us on the other side is
still… loading.”
Gaurav Singh Nijjer, New Delhi
13)
PARTICIPANT
MANISH RUPAREL
on MWENYA B. KABWE (SOUTH AFRICA)’s session:
“Afrocartography:
Traces of Places and all points in between”
5th
July, 2022
Talk description: “In
this talk, Kabwe will speak about the iterations of her autobiographical
choreopoem work titled Afrocartography and its relationship with
migration, belonging, identity, place and the black migrant artistic genre of
‘migritude’.”
Performance
Artist and Filmmaker Manish
Ruparel writes:
“Mwenya Kabwe read some wonderful extracts from her work and from works that
influence her. She speaks at length about dramaturgy of movement, migration,
mapping and Afrocartography.
From everything she read, I particularly found the
description of mapping very interesting - “Maps are self portraits. Maps are
manifestations of perceptions. Maps are portraits of the world in a manner that
those preparing them would like it to be understood.” It helped me get a better
sense of her culture. I’ve often read about the impacts of geography on life in
a very scientific and matter-of-fact way. To hear her speak about remapping
personally, adds a lot more depth to this understanding.
She also introduces us to The African Futures Project, her
PhD project which merges Afrocartography, Afro Futurism and Migritude. She also
presented her work, which helped me visualise her research. It was very
interesting to see the various shapes that her work has taken over the years.
She takes her sense of migration, place and identity and constantly creates
work around it. She talks about disrupting notions and questioning ideas.
She goes on to talk about the characters within
Afrocartography - The Traveler, The Afropolitan, The Afrosettler and The
Mapmaker - how they were created, how they speak, what they stand for etc.
She ends her talk with introducing us to AfroFuturism and her work around it. She uses her art to instil a sense of responsibility towards social behaviour. In a way, she takes up the responsibility to reimagine African history and future and ventures on a journey to represent the African identity devoid of any colonial gaze.”
Manish Ruparel, Mumbai
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