New production
Work is in progress on
பார்வை
The Gaze
conceptualized by Hanne M. de Bruin & P. Rajagopal - Tamil script: P. Rajagopal
An Indian-Dutch cultural project in collaboration with Het Nationale Ballet in Amsterdam; supported by the Netherlands Embassy in New Delhi
Pārvai or The Gaze is inspired by the story of the 19th century Western romantic ballet La Bayadère (The temple dancer or devadasi) as well as by the travelogue of the 18th century Dutch merchant and traveller Jacob Haafner. In his book published in 1808, Haafner describes his love for the devadasi Mamia with whom he had a relationship of several years until she died prematurely. La Bayadère has been criticized for its orientalist, racist and patriarchal content. While degrading elements of race, subservience and ‘othering’ have no place any longer on the contemporary stage, the ballet’s orientalist elements were quite acceptable and expected in 19th century ballets and operas. These elements include tigers, pagan fire rites, black-face(d) ‘natives’, fakirs, temple dancers in harem-pants holding flower bouquets in their hands, salacious brahmin priests, and in La Bayadère a golden dancing Shiva, Buddha statue and smoking opium to reach ‘nirvana’. It is only much later that these elements become subject of artistic and political scrutiny. The figure of the oriental female dancer appealed to Western elite audiences and, like the early ballerina, tickled the (male) gaze. However, the bayadère appears to have had no specific geographical location nor much of an agency. She remained an unattainable figure, dying a ‘romantic’ death on the stage, her love unfulfilled.
In Pārvai we turn the gaze around looking at the world of ordinary and less ordinary people in colonial South India in the 19th century. The play gives a voice to a female artist, in our case not a dancer but a professional Kuttu actress, even though we do not know whether women ever performed in this theatrical genre at that time. The unusual love story of Kamaladevi and Jacob Boss is situated at the time of the Madras Great Famine, an apocalyptic event that took place in 1877-1878, the year in which La Bayadere premiered in St. Petersburg. The famine was photographed by a British male photographer. In our story we have changed him into an arrogant professional woman photographer. She too is the result of our fantasy as we do not know -- but think it is plausible -- that an entrepreneurial woman photographer and explorer from an elite background might have operated in India at that time.
Pārvai is expected to premiere towards the end of December 2023. A small seminar focusing on the figure of the Oriental woman in the arts has been planned for January 2024. If you like to be kept informed about the play and the seminar please let us know.
You can follow the making of Pārvai here
TAVAM - தவம்
(2021)
Script: P. Rajagopal
Direction: P. Rajagopal & Hanne M. de Bruin
Production: Hanne M. de Bruin.
a play made during the Covid-19 pandemic
exploring the constraints faced by the 1st generation of professional women Kattaikkuttu performers
Duration: 75 minutes | Language: Tamil
TAVAM has been imagined as two journeys in opposite directions: on the one hand, Arjuna’s journey to Mount Kailasa in search of the Pasupati weapon and, on the other hand, the journey of five young rural women Kattaikkuttu performers into a socially forbidden, male-only theatre world.
In order to achieve his passion, Arjuna needs to perform an austere penance (tavam) breaking off his social relationships with the human world (as can happen in the times of a pandemic). The journey of the women involves a different kind of tapas or resolve in which they need to negotiate the social constraints and the reasons rural society gives to prevent rural young women, who are fully trained in Kattaikkuttu, to continue their career in the performing arts, in particular also after marriage. At a more symbolic level these two journeys represent the transmission of the Guru (Arjuna) to his female students who will become part of the next generation of Kattaikkuttu performers and teachers.
The play intertwines three different threads: Excerpts from well-known Kattaikkuttu plays in which the women show their ability to perform both female and male roles in Kattaikkuttu style. These excerpts are mirrored by scenes, performed in a realistic acting style, showing the actresses in family and family-in-law settings and negotiating their passion to perform. Finally, Arjuna’s appearance and his songs from the Tamil Devaram (which normally feature in the off-stage performance of the play Arjuna's Tapas) provide a philosophical commentary on today's society and the problems the actresses face.
TAVAM interweaves the different threads of rural women performers’ inroads into a male theater form, Kattaikkuttu’s stigmatized nature as a theatre of the rural poor, social and family relationships and the impact of the pandemic on the live performing arts.
Rajagopal composed the script of the play on the basis of the input of the women performers during a series of residencies at the Sangam, in collaboration with Hanne M. de Bruin and Maitri Gopalakrishna. The arangetram of the live performance of TAVAM took place at the Kuttu Kalai Kudam on 23rd of September 2021.
TAVAM the film
In addition to the live performance, we made a cinematic adaptation of TAVAM. TAVAM the film (2022) was shot onsite by Bangalore-based film maker Sandhya Kumar. The one-hour film has English subtitles and can be screened on request.
The residencies of the women, the production and the film version have been made possible by funding from the Kattaikkuttu Sangam, Kalai Manram Foundation, Fideel, De Zaaier, International Relief Fund for Organizations in Culture and Education 2021, the German Federal Foreign Office, Goethe Institute (through) Ranga Shankara for supporting the filming of TAVAM.
TAVAM Live has been performed in Bangalore (Rangashankara), Kanchipuram (Book Fair), Kolkata (Pickle Factory Festival) and Pondicherry (SpicMacay).
TAVAM the film has been shown in Sonipat (Ashoka University), Chennai (Dakshinachitra), Kolkata (Rabindra University) and Bangalore (Azim Premiji University). You can watch it here.
Please contact us if you are interested in commissioning a live show or film show of TAVAM.
Karnatic Kattaikkuttu
(2017-2019)
is an experimental production in which 2 equally complex performing art forms - “classical” Karnatic concert music and “folk” Kattaikkuttu theatre - collaborate to explore what both forms share, where they differ and how they speak to and with each other.
Karnatic Kattaikkuttu features the episode of the Disrobing of Draupadi and Duryodhana as the single survivor on the last day of the Mahabharata war from the traditional Kattaikkuttu repertoire.
At the heart of the production is an extraordinary musical match between Krishna and Rajagopal in which they articulate and debated—through songs and verbal explanations in Tamil and English—the differing perceptions people have of Karnatic music and Kattaikkuttu, language, and caste.
Rajagopal, in a composition he wrote himself, describes art as ulaippu (உழைப்பு), hard physical labor highlighting the physical demands of Kattaikkuttu on the actor’s body. Krishna contrasts this with the (Brahminical) view of art as disembodied, spiritual wisdom.
Karnatic Kattaikkuttu brought together 4 collaborators: Karnatic vocalist Thodur Madabusi Krishna; Kattaikkuttu actor, director, and playwright Perungattur Ponnusami Rajagopal; Karnatic vocalist Sangeetha Sivakumar; and myself as a scholar and dramaturg. The fact that Karnatic concert music and Kattaikkuttu theater shared the same space was for us a political statement. The forms occupy opposite ends of a continuum that divides the Indian performing arts into “classical” and “folk”—labels that in terms of prestige are equivalent to “high” and “low.” This distinction appears to be social and political rather than artistic.
Karnatic Kattaikkuttu brought together 4 collaborators: Karnatic vocalist Thodur Madabusi Krishna; Kattaikkuttu actor, director, and playwright Perungattur Ponnusami Rajagopal; Karnatic vocalist Sangeetha Sivakumar; and myself as a scholar and dramaturg. The fact that Karnatic concert music and Kattaikkuttu theater shared the same space was for us a political statement. The forms occupy opposite ends of a continuum that divides the Indian performing arts into “classical” and “folk”—labels that in terms of prestige are equivalent to “high” and “low.” This distinction appears to be social and political rather than artistic.
The production addresses the blindness that prevents people, entrenched within their own cultural, social and political ghettoes, from experiencing an art form, any art form, with an open mind.
Karnatic Kattaikkuttu premiered in Mumbai in December 2017 under the auspices of First Edition Arts. Subsequently it featured at the Serendipity Festival in Goa and Kochi Biennale (2018) and was performed at Rangashankara Theater Bangalore, lawns of the Prince of Wales Museum in Mumbai and Kalakshetra in Chennai (2019).
To listen to the making of Karnatic Kattaikkuttu click here.
For an insider’s perspective on Karnatic Kattaikkuttu, read Hanne M. de Bruin’s essay in The Drama Review (TDR 243 Fall 2019).