Evening prayer

 The work aims to encourage the audience to reflect and rethink  the way we are engaging with our political landscape .Highlight the  dangers of polarization ,dogmatic laws and the result of non-action or silences or indifference to a discrimination towards minority.

 The project will also look at the thin line between a political work and a protest that opens up different way of thinking about the humanity and our impact on each other and the world

 

 

 

Project disription -                                         

                                     Evening Prayer 

 

“Freedom of speech is understood to be fundamental in a democracy. The norms on limiting freedom of expression mean that public debate may not be completely suppressed even in times of emergency” Human Rights Watch..

 

Project will investigate the state of being in protest, in our democratic world and how could we associate to diversity in this ever-increasing polarized world. 

 

How could we create a space where:

-We can reflect, rather than taking decisions about what is right and wrong?

-We can make ourselves available to be good listener!  And not followers?

-We will be looking at the construction of a narration with diversity as a piece of the prayer (Pray or Prey).   A poetic landscape or A horrific landscape?

 

 

Our project would like to look at the act of getting a group of artists in a studio whose body of work has been politically charged and explore the status of the present political systems. Our man’s club with one women in it would like to create a work by unfolding the man clubs that our society is based on, looking into the rules ,narration and dogmatism in the systems of politics. In all this aspect of society, there is an attempt to include women. But at the end of the day, with very few exceptions, its all mainly male driven patriarchal society.  With exception of few governments, most of the world is turning into an extreme right-wing state.

Art by nature have the quality of breaking boundaries and finding a deeper voice to our human condition. Dance at its present state have a greater reach as it also breaks the language barrier.

 

The idea is to find a working methodology to look at aspects of rigid systems .Explore the past and present of rescent human history (His-Story) and find and alternative narrations which can question the present .The work aims to encourage the audience to reflect and rethink  the way we are engaging with our political landscape .Highlight the  dangers of polarization ,dogmatic laws and the result of non-action or silences or indifference to a discrimination towards minority.

 

 The project will also look at the thin line between a political work and a protest that opens up different way of thinking about the humanity and our impact on each other and the world. By keeping away quotations from past, rising below questions to finding better questions …

 Is it possible to look at our world from different perspectives?

Can we redefine the word survival and fittest ? 

Can we create a system that takes account the collaborative or co-existing aspect of the evolution theory?

Can we look at religion as an individual quest to find inner self and separate religion from administrator of mass and justices’ systems?

 Why is there “acts of God “included in our legal text?

Can we find solutions to complex problems with the act of movement and composition?

What happens when we translate present rules of political systems to composition sets?

 

 

Objective - 

We as a civilizations valued the writing words more then any other form of communication.On top of this thinkin, the complexity of a language is been simplified to reach a mass. We are getting information from social media to a point world leader are using such platforms to communicate.... Like in every aspect of the world everything is been observed through the lens of capitalism ,from mono cultural to monopoly on business ...

 

In this environment, it's paramount to find way to create new forms of communication. one of the vanue(??)is art and finding collaboration with diverse people to address the ghost of singular cultural movement.  Re introduction of the collaboration and cancel out the polarization philosophy of the present systems.

 

 

 Urgency-

The need to do this project came after reading the book “The ministry of outmost happiness” by Arundhati Roy & The recent events in Indian/many other nation’s democratic backsliding due to right wing politics. Which is enforcing the polarized social vision and singular/unidimensional identities. 

(singular /unidimensional identities are associated with top -down authoritarian regimes who manipulate identity as a way of deflecting democratic pressures)

In the book, a Hijra(term for Indian transgender)who has become anarchic settles down in a Muslim graveyard and names it Jannat(urdu word for heaven ).Eventually this Jannat also becomes home of the few other characters. And in multiple layers, it unfolds the personal and social horrors of the current political shifts, it looks personal yet objectively on the world’s biggest democracy. It also resonated with me on a very personal since my background from a small village. I am fearing that my behavior would be dictated and modified by the Hindu majority. My family did not follow all the religious ceremonies with fundamental approach, but with an ease as an act of being part of the society. With the shift in time, when I visit my home and my family now, I can feel their views on religion and being Hindu living in India have gotten a bit stiffer. It does surprise me, but then I slowly understand that it’s the effect of the new political system, which have used the promise of economic growth of the middle class in exchange of submission to very fix political religious ideas. And a very little appreciation for other religion/ systems. The terror of India becoming a monoculture/religion nation is haunting me. 

I admired a lot Arundhati Roy for her brave step to write something like this and speak in a nation where people who dare to speak against the new government are being harassed.

 The book is different than the brief news which is form one point of view. It is the unfolding and connections between the different parts of the society which is very unique in this book and true for any diverse society. 

 

I want to do this piece with the forms of protests and emphasis on multitude of diversity. 

 

 

 “Evening prayer” To 

1.     Manipulation of Narration!

The complexity and diversity is the core of any entity, in order to make multiple entry points for different concepts & ideas to enter and make the given entitie it's home. One of the main idea used to keep a nation together is a common narration.This can be a Narration of a language, race, religion, revolution, morality,mythology, kings and queens, nature ect...But in the rescent times the Narrations are simplified to fit our present cultural, which is  fast and say everything in a sentence or an emoji.... and this act or reduced narration looses the entry point for a multitude of existence, but forces an exclusive club .The after effects of this kind of engagement leads to belief/ brief Narrations and cut of the very essence of any other Narrations,which is to read in-between the lines, find questions not follow quotes...

 

As we have simplified the evolution book to survival of fittest as it's fits the capitalism Narrations.But we miss the point. The words «collaboration and co existence» is used a lot more times in the book. In the same way out present political system are taking a leafe from the divide and rule philosophy from the Colonial policies .The new Narration is concentrating on the Unity and completely erasing the diversity. There is an effort to bring in a one language, one religion & a totalitarian Central control of policymakers. , tax, education, art, business, agriculture, technology, infrastructure etc.

 

The nature of such engagement always led to a some kind of cleansing; let it be erasing cultural heritage, conversation of religion and in extreme cases ethnic cleansing.

 

 

2.    Re-understanding the terminology “Democracy”

 

Democracy was developed in small city states. The size of the place and the population of the states allow an active participation of the majority of the population in the democratic prosses. In the present day, as the thinking has inclined to look at the democratic system as the perfect administrative method to go to few fundamental problems have arisen. 

 

Larger the Population, the engagement in the prosses is limited to just voting.

The literary rate of the nation dictates the quality of engagement  

The social and cultural structure will define the freedom of choice for women and minorities.

The system expects the elected person to be virtuous 

In case of large-scale poverty votes can be just bought

In case of uber rich population government can just be made a puppet 

In case of strong military there will be a coup very frequently  

 

 

With all this fundamental problem in the system, how can one expect a fair process of democracy? Is it time to look at the obstacles of the society and the greed of an indulge? Reassess the system?  Can art work paly a role reflection on complicated and somewhat suprema and unquestionable ideology of Democracy 

 

We in India are entering a phrase in which we are seeing a repeat of history of Third Reich, the rise of the religious parties, the blossoming of right-wing movements that’s been spreading hate against Indian minority. They have been working at grassroot level under the cover of youth movement. During times like this, every aspect of the society should raise its voice. Can an art work(S) be instrumental in bringing the right altitude in the nation (Unity in Diversity)

 

3.     

East as a place to look with in ..

 

The culture, landscape ,weather and the relationship of the population with the unseen existence in the east always has created an environment for a seaker to question the given identities of a person.The act of finding a way to undo the tags of gender, sexuality, political stand. Find a connection within to address the issue of self and the meaning of existence as a human.To aid this prosses different physical practice , rituals and   the various mystical narations of god's and demon's used as matophore to engage in un- doing the gross understanding of existence as we know.....

 

When world’s largest democracy threatens and forces uni-identities, This is also a good place for us to start the project in east as in this time more and more identities are forced by systems around the world. And the result in this process is very weakening our own acceptance of diverse identities. 

 

 

 

 

 

Dilemma of a normal citizen!

When protest have been met with brutal forces to suppress the mass over and over again! … how do we act in such times? Should we all go out and protest and not work or should we work and let someone else do the fight instead? 

 

 

 

 

 

 

My personal background - 

I grew up in a small Indian village with a little prayer to close the day and be with peace that “it will be all right”. When I think back, psychologically it worked as a dose for the anxiety of the uncertain future that one faces in a place where you have very little chance. And there are countless memories I was myself praying to God for fulfilling my dreams and having a successful life. I knew very little at that stage that it was more a process for me to know what I want in my life and to reconfirm it over and over again, it kept me on track. 

Note- In this process of learning how to pray, one also learns to make an offering in pleasing the God for fulfilling the wish/dream.  

 

 

 

 

Formiddling / fremforing 

 

For the creative process in art residencies - 

project will look in the process of protest: the protest movements all the way from French revolution, Mahatma Gandhi’s peace march against East India company, to the umbrella movement in Hongkong and then the recent protest in India as a core study. (The actual facts around these mass movements and the formations, effects and after effects of these protests and marches). We will generate group movement as a suggestion of a protest, embodiment, the feel and sense of an actual protest, deeply absorbing in transferring the effect of such social activity which is in the core of societies around the contemporary world. 

What is the embodiment of protest from singular unit to the multiple?

We will also look the movement started by individuals like Greta Thunberg. She started the strike from school for environment and demand world leaders not to push the production growth on the cause of environmental damage!

as for our movement research, the idea of the response generated by an individual or a group. 

Is it so, “if you are seeking the right cause, it does not matter how many you are to begin with?”

 

 

 

 

The hierarchical world which was driven by the greed to progress only in one direction “economic growth “ has to be challenged, the misuse of democracy has to be addressed to look at it self, this is the notion of my current world how long can I keep my eyes shut and pretend not to see it. There is straight connection between the hierarchical democracy and environmental issue and project will n explore these subjects and inspect them closely !

 

 

The team of artists and what they can bring to this project in this relation to the team, will be very exciting for me to be part of and witness.

 In the team there is a performance artist from Dalit background who lives and works from Berlin, Germany (Indain born Sajan Mani ) 

A French circus artist who works and travels all over the world doing extreme physical performances, French Dimitri Jourd. 

A composer who is very active in identity politics and is an integral part of group “Talking straight” in Berlin, Houwida Gulli 

Video artist Camille who can generate a sense of time waves and a sense of a larger body of the event (protests) open the space beyond the four walls of the stage. 

And three of dancers from different parts of India, Lalit Khatana, Deepak k.S .and Jaskaran S. Anand, all had dance education backgrounds both from India and Austria. I have been working with them all the way from 2014 onwards and their own works have been very actively engaged in the current political situations. For exp. Deepak’s work with the youth of Kashmir, where audience can feel the handicap of these lives living in conflicted zones.  Lalit’s performance “queen size” which has been important in strengthening the LGBT movement in India performed more then 150 times in different parts of India. 

 

 

 

 

 

Set Design & Video Ideas

The main idea for the set is to fill the room with a mass of life-size puppets, handled directly by the 5 performers on stage, and/or by an 'unseen force' (embodying polarized political ideas). 

Depending on the size of the stage, we are thinking of between 30 to 50 puppets, playing the role of the sea of bodies. These marionette bodies will be operated, via a network of strings, by the performers but also by an independent system. The performers themselves can sometimes be connected to this network and manipulated like puppets. 

Footage of old and new protests will be projected in the background or on top of the sea of bodies (artists and puppets on stage). This footage will be a common point of departure for both audiences and performers, be the protest for the democracy, equal rights for Dalits in India or LGBT community worldwide, Gandhi’s march, french revolutions etc … these mass, time shifting, time defining footage will be used as waves on the sea of bodies, sometimes crushing everything and everyone, other times being resisted by some bodies either performers or puppets.

The struggle movement in this landscape will be key to generate an interplay between what is recorded medium and what is starting to blend in with the actual actions. The idea behind this is to make the audience feel that these movements are timeless, that protests have always existed, and thus generate a sense of proximity and empathy for these events.