eastsoultrain

While on a loooong train journey trying to formulate different performance pieces for @eastsoultrain last year, @aryarothe sneakily captured us going into a longwinded, passionate discussion on tea. This is just a short snippet. Tea apparently means a lot to us. Also featuring @snigdhaprabhakar and @deen_o0

A glimpse into EASTgoesSOUTH 2025… What an incredible journey! Thank you to everyone who made it possible. 📽️ footage by the cohort and by Arvind ( Kochi), Krishnan Menon ( Bangalore), Kunal Chakraborty and team( Kolkata) and short film edit by Kunal Chakraborty. EASTgoesSOUTH 2025 was supported by @millerzillmerfoundation , produced by @off.track.collective and @mesh_works in partnership with @artsforwardindia and @citizensofstage Co Lab. [EASTgoesSOUTH, Residency, Offtrack Collective, Artists, interdisciplinary, collaboration, train journey]

It's almost a year from a life-altering journey across India on a series of trains from Kochi to Kolkata. A journey with a cohort of beautiful art-humans from across the world who came together to meet and create with each other in the liminal space of a train. We now have a film edited by the wonderful Kunal Chakraborty, editor and film maker, that captures the life and essence of the journey and the people that made it. The film celebrates the important questions around kinship, creation, collaboration, belonging, friendship, art-making, ethics, politics and ecology that came up during the journey, some of which manifested itself through the short pieces of work we presented at @theurbantheatreproject at the end of our travels. We share this precious film here tomorrow at 4 pm IST. Do drop by to watch it and share it with your friends and community. #east #eastgoessouth #eastafricansoultrain

Throwback EastgoesSouth 2025 residency with @eastsoultrain , still so grateful, (obviously) the best food ever, the sweat of my entire water weight everyday (years and years of London toxicity 💁🏼‍♂️), secret cigs by open doors in moving trains, new forms of wellbeing for my pre show routines (🫣), intersectional politics in practice. So much fun, beauty and collective hope cultivated in this time. Two weeks on trains across India with artists, producers, writers, filmmakers from India, Botswana, UK, stopping in different cities and art spaces to develop work later showed in Kolkata at @theurbantheatreproject . Hopefully back soon to finish recording New Cartographer with @kiteloon

Tenderness. it's perhaps been one of the hardest things for me to offer to a group, uninhibited. At the @eastsoultrain residency last year the prompt we started off with was 'Kofu Safarini' - the scars we collect along the way. without articulating as much, I veered towards the scar of being 'unwanted'. I'd asked the group if they'd carry with them a 'weed'—a piece of a plant that in the human capitalist ecology was deemed unwanted, unnecessary— that nonetheless, spoke to them. some brought with them gorgeous ones found specifically in their land, some others contributed a piece of fallen leaf, a dried flower, a piece of bark that they picked up along the way as the train we were on moved through different states, literally and metaphorically. that's how this piece of work began. the last slide holds a glimpse of the first iteration at Kochi - of what eventually became a dynamic participatory installation — each iteration shaped differently by the ecology of the land that held it and the sensibilities of people who gathered around it. @aryarothe gave it its name. @kiteloon made some beautiful music for it. @diyanise and @artsontop contributed in ways I cannot name. @ninadsamaddar and @gonguragangsta generously offered their nurturing spaces for the work to find its foraged routes. this piece of work - the collective body - is the first time Tenderness moved through me to a group of strangers, uninhibited. as someone who's always been motivated by emotions like anger and rage, I cannot tell you what that means. but perhaps I won't. as the world moves through yet another violent phase of hate and destruction, on this lunar eclipse day, I will wish this journey upon you — this movement to your own tenderness. I'm grateful that art and its generous, invigorating processes, have been my aide. I wish you find yours. @eastsoultrain will always remain grateful to our itinerant train journey across the country, in all its scars and blossomings, for having made this journey to my core. ❤️

April 2025, I set out on yet another train journey with a bunch of beautiful artists this time. 12 days. We delved right in. We became friends immediately. Intellectually, creatively and heart warmingly abundant time spent together. From speaking to doing barely took time. And there... by the 12th day, we were ready for a 1.5 hour long presentation. 1. @deen_atg 2. @aryarothe 3. @kiteloon 4. @katkkolkes 5. @oyshter_ 5. Myself 7. Us together 8. @sameera_iyengar @popspowage @visualcacophony @adrijaamm @artsontop @diyanise @ninadsamaddar @gonguragangsta (THE TEAM) Thank you @eastsoultrain for this life changing experience. Waiting for the next one!!!!!! @theurbantheatreproject for hosting our final presentation 🫠 Thank you creek studio and Niinad for capturing beautiful moments.

The East Goes South pilot version took place earlier this year in India. The participants met each other in liminal spaces of connection and creation on this journey. We have been sharing their reflections on what it meant for them to be on this transcontinental and transdisciplinary journey. Here is a reflection from Snigdha Prabhakar, artist from India EASTgoesSOUTH 2025 was supported by @millerzillmerfoundation , produced by @eastsoultrain and @mesh_works in partnership with @artsforwardindia and @citizensofstage Co Lab [EASTgoesSOUTH, Residency, Offtrack Collective, Artists, Kolkata]

The East Goes South pilot version happened earlier this year in India. A bunch of excited creatives travelled across more than half the country sharing, creating and collaborating on the way. We are sharing some of their reflections from this this transcontinental and transdisciplinary journey. Here is a reflection from Kat Kai Kol - Kes, cultural architect, educator, performer, researcher from Botswana, Africa. EASTgoesSOUTH 2025 was supported by @millerzillmerfoundation , produced by @eastsoultrain and @mesh_works in partnership with @artsforwardindia and @citizensofstage Co Lab [EASTgoesSOUTH, Residency, Offtrack Collective, Artists, Kolkata]

The East Goes South pilot version took place earlier this year in India. Participants of this edition are sharing their reflections on what it meant for them to be on this transcontinental and transdisciplinary journey. Here is a reflection from Sourjyo Sinha, musician from Kolkata, India. EASTgoesSOUTH 2025 was supported by @millerzillmerfoundation , produced by @eastsoultrain and @mesh_works in partnership with @artsforwardindia and @citizensofstage Co Lab [EASTgoesSOUTH, Residency, Offtrack Collective, Artists, Kolkata]

The East Goes South pilot version took place earlier this year in India originating in Kochi, travelling to Bangalore, then across the country to Delhi and finally culminating in Kolkata with a cohort of 6 artists, 3 producer curators and 4 witnesses from across India, UK and Africa. Everything that happens on a train journey happened during these long durational spaces : deep conversations, heart-led imaginings and connecting with each other as human beings and artists. Participants of this edition have shared their reflections on what it meant for them to be on this transcontinental and transdisciplinary journey. Here is a reflection from Deen Atger, curator and artist from the UK. EASTgoesSOUTH 2025 was supported by @millerzillmerfoundation , produced by @eastsoultrain and @mesh_works in partnership with @artsforwardindia and @citizensofstage Co Lab [EASTgoesSOUTH, Residency, Offtrack Collective, Artists, Kolkata]

“We shall not cease from exploration And the end of all our exploring Will be to arrive where we started And know the place for the first time.“ And boy did we explore and reimagine a space.

Thank you Subhalakshmi Dey for so eloquently capturing the spirit of EASTgoesSOUTH. We could not have articulated the idea and experience any better. Pls accept our gratitude. Thank you Smita Roy Choudhury, Smita di for the care you bring towards the arts, holding space for new work and new initiatives and for all of us working to build and sustain the fragile ecosystems in the arts. Thank you to The Telegraph for being there for the arts in our city. EASTgoesSOUTH 2025 is supported by @millerzillmerfoundation , produced by @eastsoultrain and @mesh_works in partnership with @artsforwardindia and @citizensofstage #gratitude #arts #kolkata #eastgoessouth