"Tiffin Box"
poster design(chimuk)
few lines from PROTHOM PROTISRUTI,
a performance triptych by Pi.
14feb'2014.3,5,7PM.NANDAN COMPLEX,kolkata.
The
performance took place in three segments image-narrative. In the first
segment Amitava, Rituparna, and Uma entered the space of performance and
started engaging in the mundane activities of domestic personal space –
Amitava grinds black cumin, Uma washes her arms, face and neck,
Rituparna applies kajal to her eyes and tries to make her hair.
Chirantan sits on his knees and makes a floor design with chalk pieces,
moving and stretching his body. Rupan sings “naa go eije dhula amar naa
ae..” by Rabindranath Tagore that Rituparna tries to resonate. Taufik
reads out a fragment of the novel ‘Prothom Protisruti’ by Ashapurna
Devi.
‘Prothom
Protisruti’ is the first part of a Realist trilogy about three
generations of women at various stages of liberty of personhood, written
in the early 1960s, situated in late nineteenth and early twentieth
century.
The
performance is done in three segments for around 15min each with a gap
of one hour, enacting different domestic activities involving body. In
the Nandan campus, ‘Charukala’ an annual exhibition of Fine Arts was
going on, which is sponsored by West Bengal State. When the second
segment was being performed, a police man interrupts saying this cannot
be done here as a State sponsored event is going on. Otherwise it
requires permission. An argument broke between Taufik and the policeman
which Taufik had stretched by eventually making time for the activities
to be completed by accompanying performers. The interesting thing about
it is the policeman, representing the State, got implicated in the
performance. For a few minutes it was the presence and display of power
of the policeman contrasted with the intimacy of the space that the
performative activities have created. In the technically ‘cultural
space’ of the State – Nandan – this performance is not “cultural”. Then
what is it? Where can we make space for such voice that is expelled by
the definitions of dominant ideology of culture? By the very effort to
expel (and it was literally in this context) from the space of dominant
culture they make such performative engagements “extra-cultural”. And it
is this position of “extra-cultural” that provides the political
disagreement and dissent to logically contest the State and dominant
culture.
So,
the plan for the third segment was more challenging and filled with
potential for fun!! We returned to the space and started the activities
in an invisible manner. Uma, Babun and Rituparna sat under a tree and
started braiding each other’s hair into one, connecting the three heads
which, produced curiosity and laughter in the minds of the spectators.
Chirantan started lighting incense sticks with the help of one burning
incense stick. Taufik walked around the space and later started reading
the text accompanied by Rupan’s singing. Amitava started sketching the
activities. All the activities are mundane in their general form. But
these mundane activities were transformed through the performative
enactment of them in the space by subverting the normal behaviour. The
performative acquired absurdity. And this is a response to the efforts
to expel a voice that was speaking of something in a comprehensible
language. Thus the situation provoked the language of nonsensical and
the absurd that involves the disturbance created by the dominant
discourse in the name of “good culture” which is structurally exclusive
and emotionally oppressive. The “extra-cultural” seems to be a promising
radical position to encounter the bastion of dominant culture that
needs to be adequately theorised. Lets make it happen.
facebook link:
1.https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.581241408630476.1073741834.340891092665510&type=1
2.https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.581244281963522.1073741835.340891092665510&type=1
3.https://www.facebook.com/media/set/?set=a.581244628630154.1073741836.340891092665510&type=3
