Enter at your own risk: A Theatrical Performance

Mar 10, 2019

02.00 PM - 03.30 PM

Conflictorium
Gool Lodge Opposite R.C High School of Commerce, Delhi Chakla, Ahmedabad, India 380001.

Open For All.

2019-03-10 14:00:00 2019-03-10 15:30:00 Asia/Kolkata Enter at your own risk: A Theatrical Performance About the play: It is a devised experimental play inspired by the works of Sa’adat Hasan Manto. Texts by Shubha, Mahasweta Devi and Amrita Pritam have been weaved in the narrative. The play tries to explore the notions of sanity and insanity, through multiple narratives weaved in a non-linear structure, by critiquing the madness of aggressive nationalism. It looks at how this kind of nationalism breeds fascist ideology and how it regulates women’s bodies to assert power, making it a site of nationalist politics. From the vantage point of partition, it brings into focus some of the contemporary issues – Babri Masjid Demolition, Muzaffarnagar riots, Jaat reservation riots and violence in Kashmir and Manipur. The madness that led to the division of the country in 1947, which Manto has critiqued in his works, continues even today through divisive and communal politics. The play tries to bring forth the danger which is lurking around us in the form of upsurge of blind patriotism and nationalistic fervour; and the urgency with which we need to resist it. About the process: This devised piece has come through an intensive two-month long process started in 2016, followed by a one month process in January 2019. The process was curated in a way so as to create a space where the performer’s body interacts with the theoretical concepts and literary texts. We looked for such moments during rehearsals in which these interactions translate into a gesture, movement or scene. It allowed the performers to bring in their own stories and connect with the characters and the thematic of the play. This allowed an organic journey of the various elements of the play coming from the performers themselves, such as script/dialogues, the material of the costume, set design and properties, music and the projection video. There has been a lot of emphasis on reading essays, articles and news pieces around the issues of gender and nationalism, communal and state violence. To further gain an understanding on these issues, we also held talks and spoke with people working at the ground level, such as Jaya Iyer (Independent theatre practitioner), Shubha (Poet, Theatre Activist), Manmohan (Poet, Theatre Activist) and Soumyabrata Choudhury (Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU) among others. About the Team: We are an ensemble of theatre and movement practitioners (alumni of Ambedkar University-Delhi, Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia) based out of Delhi. The collective came together in 2016 and since then has been functioning as a not-for-profit ensemble engaged in theatre for social change. The members of the collective are associated with various culturally and socially active organizations and theatre groups based in Delhi-NCR in different capacities. Some of us have been continuously working on critical issues like farmer suicides, honour killing, caste discrimination and state-led violence, which are mostly suppressed in mainstream media. Apart from Enter At Your Own Risk…, as a collective, we devised and performed another production in 2017, titled Agla Station Lok Kalyan Marg Hai. It was a dramatisation of poems by Rajesh Joshi; performed as a protest against the systemic violence against minorities and the ongoing mob-lynchings in the country. Directed by: Sukriti Khurana and Rashi Mishra The play was performed in 2016 and 2017 in Ambedkar University Delhi, Muktadhara Auditorium, Safdar Studio, Akshara Theatre among other spaces. It received a lot of encouragement and critical appreciation from the audience. We have had 4 shows in 2019 in Muktadhara auditorium, Ambedkar University, South Asian University, Delhi and Rang Parivartan theatre studio, Gurugram, Haryana. Source : Facebook. Conflictorium Gool Lodge Opposite R.C High School of Commerce, Delhi Chakla, Ahmedabad, India 380001. Creativeyatra.com info@creativeyatra.com

About the play:
It is a devised experimental play inspired by the works of Sa’adat Hasan Manto. Texts by Shubha, Mahasweta Devi and Amrita Pritam have been weaved in the narrative. The play tries to explore the notions of sanity and insanity, through multiple narratives weaved in a non-linear structure, by critiquing the madness of aggressive nationalism. It looks at how this kind of nationalism breeds fascist ideology and how it regulates women’s bodies to assert power, making it a site of nationalist politics.

From the vantage point of partition, it brings into focus some of the contemporary issues – Babri Masjid Demolition, Muzaffarnagar riots, Jaat reservation riots and violence in Kashmir and Manipur. The madness that led to the division of the country in 1947, which Manto has critiqued in his works, continues even today through divisive and communal politics. The play tries to bring forth the danger which is lurking around us in the form of upsurge of blind patriotism and nationalistic fervour; and the urgency with which we need to resist it.

About the process:
This devised piece has come through an intensive two-month long process started in 2016, followed by a one month process in January 2019. The process was curated in a way so as to create a space where the performer’s body interacts with the theoretical concepts and literary texts. We looked for such moments during rehearsals in which these interactions translate into a gesture, movement or scene. It allowed the performers to bring in their own stories and connect with the characters and the thematic of the play. This allowed an organic journey of the various elements of the play coming from the performers themselves, such as script/dialogues, the material of the costume, set design and properties, music and the projection video.
There has been a lot of emphasis on reading essays, articles and news pieces around the issues of gender and nationalism, communal and state violence. To further gain an understanding on these issues, we also held talks and spoke with people working at the ground level, such as Jaya Iyer (Independent theatre practitioner), Shubha (Poet, Theatre Activist), Manmohan (Poet, Theatre Activist) and Soumyabrata Choudhury (Professor, School of Arts and Aesthetics, JNU) among others.

About the Team:
We are an ensemble of theatre and movement practitioners (alumni of Ambedkar University-Delhi, Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia) based out of Delhi. The collective came together in 2016 and since then has been functioning as a not-for-profit ensemble engaged in theatre for social change. The members of the collective are associated with various culturally and socially active organizations and theatre groups based in Delhi-NCR in different capacities. Some of us have been continuously working on critical issues like farmer suicides, honour killing, caste discrimination and state-led violence, which are mostly suppressed in mainstream media.
Apart from Enter At Your Own Risk…, as a collective, we devised and performed another production in 2017, titled Agla Station Lok Kalyan Marg Hai. It was a dramatisation of poems by Rajesh Joshi; performed as a protest against the systemic violence against minorities and the ongoing mob-lynchings in the country.

Directed by: Sukriti Khurana and Rashi Mishra

The play was performed in 2016 and 2017 in Ambedkar University Delhi, Muktadhara Auditorium, Safdar Studio, Akshara Theatre among other spaces. It received a lot of encouragement and critical appreciation from the audience. We have had 4 shows in 2019 in Muktadhara auditorium, Ambedkar University, South Asian University, Delhi and Rang Parivartan theatre studio, Gurugram, Haryana.

Source : Facebook.