Happy World Theatre Day!
Kavita Srinivasan,
@satoandcom and I presented Sahyande Koothu: The Making of Sahyande Theatre at Betty Nansen Teatret on the 21st.
This work emerged from 18 years of our artistic friendship, one year of asking how to speak about it, one day of rehearsal, and one performance.
It did not begin with a production idea, but with a question: how do we speak about a practice that resists becoming a product and insists on remaining a process?
What emerged was not a “piece” in the conventional sense, but a constructed situation: three theatres placed in relation and facing eachother:
Sahyande Theatre, still under construction in Attappadi,
Niwa Gekkijo, Hangman Takuzo’s backyard theatre in Tokyo,
and the altar of Koothu and Koodiyattam.
And within this, a question: what if theatre is not something we make, but something that appears when certain conditions are held?
During the presentation, the present itself entered as a fourth theatre, through Kavita’s acknowledgement of the land, the lands we have traversed to arrive, the people gathered, and the moment.
And perhaps that is precisely the point.
What we experienced was a temporary situation, created for the possibility of coexistence, and it resists capture.
Grateful to all those who made this possible: Venuji, Margi Sajeev Narayana Chakyar, Kapila Venu, Sooraj Nambiar, Pothiyil Ranjith Chakyar, Nepathya Sree Hari Chakyar, Kalamandalam Jishnu Prathap, Kalamandalam Hariharan, Kalanilayam Haridas, Kalamandalam Vaishakh, the Chakyars, Nambiars and Nangiars who took me closer to Koodiyattam and Vidhooshakan.
Tom McCrory, Robin Payne, for pushing me to ask deeper questions, to see what I was not seeing.
Gopalan, for walking closely with my thoughts.
Kavita’s family, and Satoko’s sister, Shaji Pattambi, Simitha and finally, the technicians, stage managers, and artists who run Edison at Betty Nansen Teatret, for treating the process, space, and us, with such care.
