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 -

 Maybe my body is not limited to my physical form, maybe this laptop is now an extension of my ‘self’

 If Leonardo Da Vinci would have to draw the Vitruvian man in today’s time, would he be a  ‘man’ as has been defined by the existing power regimes? Would it be a combination of human biology & some form(s) of digital appendages that we have developed over time, and/or something more?

 By opening up my world view to the existence of the work of Judith Butler, Paul (formerly Beatriz)  Preciado and others, Sabih’s talk has definitely left behind a lasting impression. 

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:




 



The Skin I Live In
Director: Pedro Almodovar


Gattaca
Director: Andrew Niccol 

                                                                                                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.

 Sabih’s delivered his lecture around making three statements:

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.

 Being a visual artist I have gone through many times the work of Leonardo Da Vinci’s Vitruvian Man and Rembrandt’s painting “The Anatomy lesson of Dr. Nicolas”, but Sabih gave me a different perspective to see towards them and think on them beyond light, colour, texture, tone etc. Every art work has a particular context behind them. That was the time when scientific studies about anatomy of human bodies has been stared. 

“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”:

 “This session by Ranjana Dave as a part of The Time is Now was an eye-opening session – a rehearsal, as she called it. While Ranjana briefly took us through the process, intentions and evolutions of ‘Improvised Futures: Encountering the Body in Performance’, albeit, in brief, it got us thinking. This book was assembled to show, inform, describe, and provoke various aspects of the moving body through points of view of artists and thinkers across multiple intersections. 

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. 

 This rehearsal of the book jogged opened up a lot of questions on how to look at the body, the many layers, and how to peel each one of them page by page. The histories of a body, loss of habitats and consequentially loss of culture and movement that it allows – the adapted body that is now exposed – losing in the context of rituals – and how these, when moved into the urban setting inspire or lead to appropriations – and who gets the legal respite, and access. The awareness one needs to hold and throw light on while creating, interacting or writing new pieces.

                                                                                                    Lakshmi Venkataraman, Bangalore 


4)     PARTICIPANT SHREEYA KISHANPURIA

on AMEET PARAMESWARAN (INDIA)’s session:
“Political Presence and Mediation: Self, Persona and Voicing”
10th June, 2022

Talk description: “One of the central developments in political performance practices in the last couple of decades is the reconfiguration of theatre space as a space of testimony and witnessing. The talk will take up for discussion some specific performance interventions from diverging geographies and contexts, specifically the works of Yuyachkani, Anna Deavere Smith and Lola Arias that articulate the political through varied strategies of staging of self and persona. These will be taken as entry points to think about the issues of presence, voicing, mediation and political critique in the contemporary.

 

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

 

 5)     PARTICIPANT TASNEEM LOHANI

“Strategies for Art and Life”
10th June, 2022

Talk description: “Janez Janša will explore artistic strategies developed in some of his works. One of the basic questions he wants to reflect is: where does an art work stop and other registers of everyday life take it over? How much is an artwork conditioned by its context? What is in an artwork that resists being taken as an artwork only? Janša will approach those and further questions understanding art as a practice deeply positioned in a society, looking at its transformative  and empowering dimensions. His talk will present some of the works that crossed the boundaries of the cultural bubble.

 

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. 

It seems as though the artist is in a 15 yr. long performance ever since he changed his name. The way in which he conducted the lecture and unfolded the many activities he carried out as Janez Janša itself felt performative. Yet when asked about this he simply said that he doesn't feel as though he is still in performance and he treats being called Janez completely natural and in tandem with his day-to-day living.



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.”

 Theatre Artist Rohit Agarwal’s session notes:

“As the title suggests, the session by Amitesh Grover was a pedagogical discussion on curation of theatre festivals in India.

 India has had its own history of theatre festivals- utsavs and mahotsavs- where the performances go on over weeks in a festival like manner, be it the Koodiyattam performances in Koothambalams, the touring circuit of mobile theatre in Assam or the Marathi(political) theatre with its own history of traveling and festivities. Now, in addition to these, India has seen its new crop of theatre festivals springing arguably after year 1999 with the advent of National School of Drama's Bharat Rang Mahotsav. These festivals are mainly state-funded and have an audience which is almost migratory- they come, participate and leave. There is no traditional lineage involved in the participation that these festivals benefit from. The general intent that these festivals indulge in is including plays with a critical outlook framing a post-colonial modern theatre in India, and for some reason every festival promises to showcase the "best theatre" in the country. But, is the pre festival selection of plays an evidence to this?

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

                                                                                                             Rohit Agarwal, Jaipur

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.”

 Painter Anima Goyal’s notes:

 ““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.
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-

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”. 

 As part of Serendipity Arts Foundation’s course on live art The Time is Now, Mee delivered a talk titled ‘Digital Performance Before, During and After COVID’ which contextualized the emerging trends and developments in performance-making through a series of case studies from the United States, United Kingdom, Russia and Argentina. Furthermore, the presentation explored questions around liveness, participation, access and engagement, among others, that have emerged in the aftermath of this two-year-long-and-counting spree of digital performances. Mee reminds us that much of what we’re witnessing in digital performances now isn’t entirely new, as there’s been a presence of ‘digital elements’ in theatre since the late 20th century. Yet performances incorporating such multimedia, projections, screens and related technologies in their design and scenography were still experienced in a live space (“IRL as opposed to on URLs” she says) – and that’s precisely where we are offered a starting point for comparative commentary. 

 The space where the audience is now gathering to witness digital performance is fundamentally different – live streams, Zoom calls, websites, mobile apps, podcasts, games, one-on-one chats, phone calls, mystery boxes – and as such, has no obligation to follow the rules of the stage. Performances made for specific platforms adopt and integrate its technical features into the performance environment: applause gives way to likes, the spotlight becomes a single-camera-view and the comment box manifests the call and response. Mee emphasizes this by recognizing digital performances as being inherently site-specific, ie specific to the (plat)form where the audience gathers to engage with the work. Theatre-makers are not only adapting their work to be simply accessed on the digital medium, but are actively seeking new software and platforms whose technical user experience aligns deeply with the performance environment they wish to cultivate for their audience.

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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