Artists from India and Wales are sowing seeds of a collaborative performance project that explores questions around being a woman, identity and what shapes it
A National Theatre Wales production. The company calls Wales its stage, and presents performances on beaches, in forests, at village halls and other offbeat venues
How do our encounters with other cultures mould us? What defines 'home'? What does it mean to be a woman in India and the UK? When artistes of diverse expertise from two nations explore these questions, the result is a unique amalgamation of ideas. Sisters, a collaborative project between National Theatre Wales (NTW) and Junoon, has brought together 10 artistes of varied experiences from India and the UK with a commonality — all of them are deeply linked to the Indian subcontinent.
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(From left) Choiti Ghosh, Tejashree Ingawale, Sameera Iyengar, Sapan Saran, Sushama Deshpande and Kully Thiarai
In the research phase at present, a workshop with the Indian artistes was held in Mumbai this week, which was attended by NTW's artistic director Kully Thiarai. "I was born in India, and brought up in The Midlands, an industrial region of England. I know the feeling of belonging nowhere. People find it easy to box you. So, as a woman of Asian origin, I was viewed as a passive person, who cannot achieve much. And then I came to head this theatre company," says Thiarai, about the inspiration behind Sisters. "Instead of doing a retrospective on themes like Partition, we decided to explore the lives of women, and how history has shaped us all."
Sameera Iyengar, artistic lead of the theatre and arts movement, Junoon, agrees over the need to challenge assumed frameworks. "What we need is an act of imagination, rooted in varied perspectives, which is why, we wanted generational diversity, and diversity of language and practice among the artistes. Sushama Deshpande, for instance, has worked with tamasha and lavani performers, while Choiti Ghosh works in different languages and brings a perspective beyond Mumbai," she says.
One more workshop is lined up for October. In April next year, the production that emerges out of these sessions will be shared with an audience in Wales, with plans for a live feed in India. This will pave the way for the final outcome.
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