Performances

I have been making mainly solo performance work for over 25 years, with the exception of a few collaborations and group pieces. I was very excited to have the opportunity to make new work within a situation in which there was the potential to collaborate with artists from other countries, and to possibly include people from the community around Khoj.

I wanted a working dialogue with the other artists, and to kick start that process, I offered a one day performance workshop at the beginning of the residency in which everyone could participate.  The workshop began with physical exercises, including breathing, stretching, and working in partners to do body lifts and stretch the body further. I had instructed each person to bring a personal object – something of some significance to them.  These were distributed at random to participants who had their eyes closed, were sitting on the floor and with hands behind their back.  Their experience with the objects was a tactile one, as I took the objects back before they opened their eyes. They then used their sense memory of  the object to create a character, and developed movement, voice, gesture, etc. through improvisation.  Each formed character then collaborated with another, and created a duet which was shown to the group.

The exercise following this was a solo performance that each participant then created with their own object, focusing on their essential connection to the object, such as an emotional narrative, eg. one of the residents had brought in a small stuffed toy bunny rabbit which she had brought with her, and was a momento from a close friend.

The second half of the day’s performance workshop was site-specific and took place in the local Khirkee Mosque – a 14th century historic monument which has many arches and domes.  Working in partners, they were given 30mins to work on  an improvisatory performance that explored light/ shade and shadow within that environment.  One pair¸ Oreet and Sushil used the light to make shadow puppets with their hands, and focused on the sound of the bats and birds in the mosque as a sound source; another pair, Anusha and Wu Ye made a series of synchronised movements in which their shadows were never apart, and always overlaid, accompanied to sounds that they each emitted; Sonia and Paulo sat back to back and experienced sound vibrations that they exchanged through their bodies, and they then positioned themselves at different angles to make shadows with their hands along the shade boundaries created by two of the columns in the mosque.  I did a solo where I danced and tried to run away from my shadow, whilst singing the song “Me and my shadow”.

There followed two more performance workshops given by Anusha and another by Oreet, but the other resident participants for a variety of reasons, did not present one.

I was undaunted in my pursuit of working with a group, and decided I would offer a performance workshop for the locals.  I organised signs in English and in Hindi, (translated by Arun) to be put up in the street inviting participants to take part.

There were five men from the village who showed up, and at the beginning all of the residents took part.  I played some music and had everyone dancing alone and then together.  Then with a partner, I asked them to follow each other’s movements, alternating who was the leader and the follower.  Then I asked them to remember 3 or 4 of the movements they had created together.  These were then passed along to the group and we all learned each other’s movements.  In the end there was a complete choreography composed of the movements by twelve participants – six residents (Sonia dcid not participate because of a knee problem), five locals, and Asta, the Community Outreach Worker at Khoj. Everyone enjoyed the experience and there was a real sense of a group dynamics. Each day at 4pm, the performance workshop continued.  However, towards the end of the week, it became clear that none of the locals wanted to be involved in a public performance, and the other residents had moved on to do their own studio-based performance projects.  I had to reconsider the project and with Asta’s help,  brought in 8 of the local kids, who were extremely excited and enthusiastic about the opportunity to participate. I was then able to “PASS ALONG” the movements created by the adults and have each of the kids contribute some of their own.

Is this performance that I conducted with the kids “Performance Art” or a “Community Project” or a “Street Performance”?
To present this performance publicly in the street in front of Khoj blurred the audience boundaries as there were both invited guests and a large crowd of local people watching.   The definition of the work was also blurred – it was “performance art” in the sense that I am a performance artist and I initiated and conducted the work, but it can also be seen as a community project and a street performance.

In the last analysis, I achieved my objective – to work with a group in which we collaborate on a performance.

TTT ADVENTURE
This is a truly inter-active performance where the audience has the choice to watch or participate.  Either way, they are the ones who are making the performance happen.
TTT Adventure was developed through a need to have a communication during the residency that was not using verbal language.  One of the residents, Wu Ye is Chinese and one is Brazilian, Paulo, and they speak very little English, but they can both play the universal language of ping-pong!  I decided to present the opportunity for a release from the daily struggle to communicate, and created the Table Top Tennis Adventure.

Here’s how  it works -
Each participant takes a bat and as there are six – this is a game for six players.  Each player moves around the table in a clockwise direction, and aims to hit the ball once at either end.

The skill is primarily in regulating your pace so that you are at either end of the table in time to hit the ball.   You also need skills of co-ordination to hit the ball so that it bounces once on the other side of the table and not on the floor, or the wall, or your opposing number’s chest! As the days went by, some of the administration staff at Khoj got involved and demonstrated their ping-pong expertise.  Then the occasional visitor to Khoj would also participate.

In the TTT Adventure, nobody wins and nobody loses,
but we have the chance to demonstrate skill and make fools of ourselves.

ALMOST HIDDEN is a solo performance which explores a liminal erotics.  It derives from the concept of the forbidden glance.  Imagine that you are in a car on a flyover on the highway.  You pass an apartment block, and very briefly you get a glimpse into the window of one of the apartments.  For a moment you become the voyeur of a private fantasy.  A woman in slip, bra, wig and high heels, with her back to the window is dancing to the mirror.  She is engrossed in watching herself as she repeatedly poses and tries out dance moves.  For that second that you notice her, she turns around.  She is wearing a black eye-mask.  You are now not only curious but intrigued.  The experience of the forbidden glance where a secret  intimacy is publicly revealed, generates a fantasy in you that continues long after the car has passed over the flyover, and occupies your imagination as you travel along the highway.

My interest in making this performance is a continuation of an investigation and search for an erotic aesthetic which highlights the sensual in daily life.  It is an attempt to bring awareness to the notion that we have ownership of our bodies and of the erotic.  The erotic and the sexual have been claimed by corporate interests, as if there was a lease on this expression and they own it outright. This is very apparent in New Delhi , where there are taboos about kissing in public or holding hands in public and women can be publicly chastised or admonished for being considered “Immodest”.  Bollywood and MTV are the two places that I’ve found where the erotic is allowed and celebrated.  Television is a cold, voyeuristic medium where the audience looks on but can never physically participate.  However, it is only within that package that this expression is tolerated.  The one exception that I experienced in my time in New Delhi was when I visited “Pegs n Pints” on a Tuesday evening – when same sex couples uninhibitedly danced together like there was no tomorrow.