Singapore International Photography Festival

Necropolis: rehearsing Koltes in such times

Dedicated to the 60th Birth Celebrations of Bernard-Marie Koltes

A play by Best of Kolkata Campus

Necropolis is a part of a three part repertoire called The Trilogy of Unrest, the first two of Hamletmachine: Images of Shakespeare-in-us and Raktakarabi: an urban sound opera also Best of Kolkata Campus’ productions. In association with Five Issues dedicated to the 60th anniversary of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights The repertoire has toured the north-east, Siliguri, Kolkata, Pune and Mumbai. The touring performance will culminate in the release of a special commemorative edition of Five Issues on Indian theatre and subversions-dedicated to Badal Sircar, Vijay Tendulkar, Bishnu Rabha and Arambam Samarendra. The performance had been supported by Five Issues toured south-east Asia in February 2009.

Necropolis has opened three international events: the prestigeous Amnesty International Festival on the 60th year Universal Declaration of Human Rights on December 5, 2008 at the India Islamic Centre in New Delhi, the 9th conference of Comparitive Literature Association of India at the Hyderabad Central University on January 27, 2009 and the first Patumthani International Festival in Bangkok orgsnised by Mordokmai theatre group(the show was held on February1, 2009 at the Supreme Artist Hall-Patumathani . It has also been the final event at the Chhobi Mela V-an International Festival of Photography organised by Drik at Dhaka.

The production has completed more than 30 shows.

Synopsis

Two men meet on the street. They have to make a deal. Or rather they want to make a deal. One has something to sale and the other needs something to buy. The Dealer is unsure what to peddle or would he want to peddle anything at the first place. The Client knows what he has to buy but does not know exactly what to buy. A cat and mouse begins between these nameless, faceless, shapeshifters who has to make a transaction which they are not sure why would they do it. For the next chunk of minutes they indulge in selling and buying of concepts without transacting anything.

What are they selling? Or rather who is buying…..Is technology, displacement, memories, genocide road-map of the universe..becoming so routine that we have lost the power to engage with them and provide a soothing balm to the displaced, destitute, fried, barbecued, roasted, killed human-folk.

More often than not we are groping for words to describe routine violence. Routine cases of racial profiling. Of exclusion. Grappling with stereotypes. Cliches. Biases on the basis of human rights. On ethical treatment of animals who become globalised pharma companies experimental guinea pigs. Biases on the basis of sexual orientation. We are looking at images and we think either they supplement the words or complement them. Is image only a memory tool? Is it just a visual metaphor? Is it just to learn things by heart? By rote? What is a perfomance? Merely a text or an improvisation or a series of theatre exercises which are prescribed as typical workshop methods? The performance probes into the image -word relationship…gets into into the rationale of images…

What images are we looking at? Nelllie-Morichjhaanpi, Malom, Mokokchung, Nandigram…What was the process of transforming the “us” into “them”…..How are “they” celebrating diversity and “their” culturalness in these times? The performance negotiates these terrains. By the time the performance ends nobody has bought, nobody has sold…yet those two individuals have transformed themselves enough to be probably up for sale if the next set of clients gatecrash into the narrative.

The play explores the idiom of solo performance with city-specific collaborators who intrude, alter and tamper the nature of the performance, yet there is a unified thread that runs through these structured improvisations…

About the Director

An independent media analyst and a performance consultant by profession, Mr. Parnab Mukherjee is one of the leading alternative theatre directors’ of the country. He divides his time between Kolkata, Imphal and the Darjeeling hills. Currently, a consultant with a publication initiative, he has earlier worked for a sports fortnightly, an English daily and a Bengali daily. He is an acclaimed authority on Badal Sircar’s theatre, Shakespeare-in-education and specialises in theatre-for-conflict-resolution and theatre-of-the-campus.

He is considered as a leading light in alternative theatre in the country having directed more than 50 productions of performance texts including three international collaborations. He has also performed 14 full length solos which include an acclaimed series of plays on trafficking, HIV and segregation called the River series, Living Text series and Foothills to Hills, a series of plays with Darjeeling as the living inspiration.

Parnab has created a personal idiom of using spaces for theatre exploration. He has extensively worked on a range of human rights issues which include specific theatre projects on anti-uranium project struggles in Jadugoda and Turamdihi, Save Tenzin campaign, rehabilitation after industrial shutdowns, shelter issue of the de-notified tribes, a widely acclaimed cycle of 12 plays against Gujarat genocide, and a range of issues on north-east with special reference to Armed Forces Special Powers Act, 1958.

Four of his major workshop modules: Freedomspeak, The Otherness of the Body, Conflict as a Text and The Elastic Body have been conducted with major theatre groups and campuses all over the country. He has written five books on theatr and his production of Tagore’s Muktadhara in darjeeling and Sikkim is an important landmark to raise voice on ctiizens affected by projects in Teesta.

Best of Kolkata Campus

Best of Kolkata Campus, an autonomous performance collective and a non-profit performance foundry, has completed 15 years of doing dedicated theatre in found spaces and public arena. It has produced a number of young theatre workers who are active in the cultural and audio-visual training arena. It is a loosely formed collective of individuals who believe that theatre is an important an independent tool of dissent outside the ambit of party politics.

Some of the most memorable productions of the group include Hamletmachine, The Country with a post office, Antigone, Raktakarabi-an urban sound opera, Bhul Rasta, Kasper-dipped and shredded, They Also Work, River Monologues, Dead-Talk series, Conversations with the dead, Crisis of Civilisation, Shakespeare shorts, Man to Man talk, Inviting Ibsen for a Dinner with Ibsen, Your path wrong path and And the Dead Tree Gives no Shelter.

The group also works in the field of installation performances and theatre-of-conflict-resolution and peace studies. The collective has travelled extensively all over the subcontinent doing shows, giving workshops and exploring alternative performance idioms.

International performances of Mr. Parnab Mukherjee

This Room is Not My Room

Necropolis