India
Between September 2011 and January 2012 I collaborated with Mallika Sarabai as co-writer and co-director of a new play about the Indian poet Rabindranath Tagore called “with Love’. During those 4 months in the city of Ahmedabad, I travelled each day from my writing desk at the Sarabhai Retreat in Shahibaug in a took took taxi to the theatre at Darpana Performing Arts Academy. With support from an ensemble of actors, musicians, designers and dancers, the writing took shape on the stage and in rigorous one on one writing workshops with Mallika. The play premiered in December 2011 and toured India throughout 2012. It was to have a profound and enduring effect in shaping my ideas of theatre, cross cultural collaboration, post colonialism, social agitation and India itself. I was a white, middle class privileged male from a small regional town in North Queensland Australia with little knowledge of Tagore, invited by one of India’s leading feminists, social activists and performers, to work with her on this new project. Luckily Mallika happened to be a humanist, a risk taker and whose values are expressed best in Tagore’s poem in Gitanjali
“Where the mind is without fear and the head is held high Where knowledge is free; Where the world has not been broken up into fragments by narrow domestic walls…….
The first wall to be breached was closer to home than I expected and divided the relative order and lofty ideals of the theatre space with the practicalities and real world chaos of the streets.
Within days of my arriving in Ahmedabad I found myself on the banks of the Sabarmati River with a camera, documenting hundreds of protesting shanty town dwellers who were being forced to leave their homes to make way for high rise development.
Banks of the Sabarmati
“I was not expecting to be standing on the banks of the Sabarmiti River with a camera and microphone amongst hundreds of protesters from a shanty town that was soon to be demolished. I soon discovered that to create relevant theatre in India you need to have one foot firmly planted in the streets and one in the theatre.
Searching for Tagore
I have always seen myself as a theatre maker rather than a writer. While I relied on the feedback and daily workshopping of ideas from Mallika and the actors, the fact was that I still went home in the evening and on weekends and alone slowly chiselled away with ideas and word, words words, in readiness for them to be changed, thrown away or vigorously debated the next day. It was the ever present company of Rabindranath Tagore that kept me patient, focused and sane.
Creating the dramatic action
Building an environment of trust and above all play was fundamental to getting the ideas on the page to something resembling action onto the stage. And I had a wonderful ensemble of fearless performers who were trained, prepared and willing to fail to test the boundaries of ideas. They also had a theatre maker who was also willing to put himself out there and fail and fail and fail again.
First Night
Banks of the Sabarmati
Diary of a Theatre Maker
Creating the Music
As part of my documentary series of profiling artists I had collaborated with, musical composer Sandeep Pillai tells the story of our partnership and his musical compositions for 3 productions in the 36th Vikram Sarabhai International Arts Festival in Ahmedabad India 2011.
Creating the Dance
Dance is at the very heart of Darpana. It is During our 5 Senses tour to Mumbai in 2011 I interviewed and filmed Pooja Puronhit.
Creating the Design
Theatre designers Cassandre Boy and Elsa Bourdin travelled from France to Ahmedabad as interns to work on the 3 productions. I had the good fortune to collaborate with them and made this film documenting the process.
Community Outreach
When I found time I would seek out schools in Ahmedabad who worked with children at the very margin’s of Indian society. Storytelling became my passport. At Kanchangauri Mangaldas Andhkanya Ashram in Ahmedabad the young students showed their passion for dance and music in the blind school’s educational program.
‘with Love’ production and tour
Following the premiere of ‘with Love’ on Dec 31st 2011 in Ahmedabad, preparations were made to take the show to Kolkata.
The elders speak
Mrinalini Sarabhai had her studio above the open space where I worked. Mrinalina established Darpana in 1948 and brought classical Indian dance to the world. I asked if she was interested in being interviewed by Australian artist and ABC retired broadcaster John Pickup. Mrinalini agreed and I recorded the interviews.
Searching for Tagore