Experiencing life 'Queen size'

Experiencing / witnessing certain art works/ performances can be a very ecstatic experience. Life is bound to never be the same, such is the impact of a truly great art work. I had a taste of such a work when i got to witness the performance of ' Queen size' conceived, choreographed and on this occasion in 2018 at the ITFOK in Thrissur also performed by Mandeep Singh. 

pc: ligament.in

It was a performance of sensuousness, passion, love and relationship. The music, energy, lighting, the ambience, the choreography and the magic was all of a surreal level and a string of very hard hitting punches of energy and beauty that i had never before encountered. I had become a big fan of Mandeep and 'Queen size' ever since witnessing that performance. Coming more than a year later, it was a great opportunity to learn more about the work and the artist when IFA put together a workshop on the occasion of a 3 day festival show casing works of IFA grantees in celebrating 25 years of IFA.

Mandeep started off the workshop by narrating an incident from his childhood that occurred to him in a park when he was bullied for the way he walked. In narrating this incident, he was subtly hitting out at how we had all been trained to 'perform' a certain idea of sexuality in one way or the other. What followed was reflections from each of the participant about what kind of advice and inputs they had received as they grew up in ' performing' a set idea sexuality very religiously.

Articulations around the idea of performing Masculinity led to the making of his dance production ' A male ant has straight antenna' in 2013 . It drew inspiration from  Rahul Roy's 'A little book on men'. This aspect of Mandeep's dance making in which he constatntly looks up to literary and art references to evolve his dance choreography is a fascinating one. Mandeep was not happy making dance just for the urban elite crowd. He wanted to take his dance to the corners of the country and engage the audience in a dialogue on aspects of queer rights.

It was at this juncture that he went back to late documentary maker Nishit Saran's essay , 'Why my Bed room habits are your business'. Nishit Saran's essay is about provoking the public by being open about his sexuality and confronting the public to react to it, as he has been forced to this situation as a result of the public invading his private space in section 377 ( Sec 377 of IPC framed in 1861 criminalised homosexuality and read, 'Whoever voluntarily has carnal intercourse aganinst the order of nature with any man, woman or animal shall be punished'. Th esection was ruled unconstitutional in Sep 2018 by the SC). Mandeep also happens to come across a painting by Pakistani Artist Asim Butt that showed two men in a bed. Mandeep was slowly arriving at the idea of exploring the bed as the site of a performance. 

Further, when he hit upon the idea of the charpoy, it's universal and simple appeal, its allusion to the laid back rural life across the length and breadth of the country, it's occasional overtures as the symbol of power, as a site of deliberation were all overwhelming reasons to make the charpoy the central piece of the performance. One has to give it to this idea of the charpoy, for it really is a very integral part of this performance, given how it bounces, creaks, embraces and dances around along with the performers. 

pc: Ligament.in

Confounded with the actual choreography, Mandeep was toying with the idea of working around 108 sex positions of the male body. But stringing a series of sex positions was not quite achieving what he set out to achieve. He was averse to stitching a narrative together either. It is at this juncture that he happens upon Roland Barthes' 'A Lover's discourse', a book which is more an assortment of fragments shorn of any overarching narrative. This lead Mandeep to devise the piece in a highly non linear format, leaving a lot to the judgement of the performers in mixing up the pieces.

Thus was born 'Queen size', a performance of intimacy, which can be quite tasking on the audience in terms of constantly being pushed to limits of comfort and constatntly throwing questions and breaking barriers. It takes quite an effort to look directly at the performers. The magical, ethereal quality of the light that seeps through a layer of water from the lamps held afloat above the charpoy adds a sting to the vigour of the performance. The lights designed in the shape of a bunch of wine glasses hung from above sets an element of drama and adds sophistication to the show.

The piece runs for two and half hours with 7 fragments that get repeated 3 times. at the end of each fragment the audience can change position or leave and make space for new audience to enter. this way Mandeep constantly keeps disrupting any attempt at building a narrative. The music complements the tempo and racing beat of the performance.

In a bid to give the participants a feel of the thinking process that goes into performing intimacy, Mandeep introduced a small exercise that in its build up of complexity was quite revealing to us. The participants were set into pairs and instructed to explore each other's hand by hand. 

This was a touch that was unlike any touch i had experienced. This was a touch of reducing the other to just the sensual aspects of the hand. the touch was devoid of any other layer. it was a sensual exploration of every square inch of the palm and it's back. there was this choreography when to let the other feel you and when to take the initiative to explore the other. the intensity of the touch and the desperation to take in more of this other through the touch was building up with each turn. Mandeep's instructions to introduce aspects like 'push - pull', 'playfulness' was adding spirit to this dance of the touch.

And then came the instruction to ask one half of the participants to play the audience, and the other half to continue performing brought a great shift to the dance of touch. The consciousness of having an audience look at brought a sudden vanishing of the intensity of the touch and transfigured it to an exercise of 'performing' the touch.

This simple exercise in the workshop was quite instructive of what sensitivities the performers of 'Queen size' might have had to undergo. It is no wonder that Lalit, one of the performers almost wanted to quit and thankfully it was his craftsmanship in putting together the charpoy made him stay in the performance.

Finally, Art arrives in Annanagar!!

Annanagar is a clueless space in Chennai, when it comes to Art events in the city. It's a question that keeeps nudging at many in the city, why certain pockets of the city are the favoured hosts to bulk of the art events. Annanagar, despite all its potential and promise has not managed to lay any significant claim to this art space. Initiatives by VR mall in recent times could be seen as an attempt at correcting this course, but for me they lack in intensity and they are too clouded in the mall environment and fail to make the impact, for instance, that exhibits in Phoenix mall manage to create.

It is in this context that a fledgling initiative by Madras Art collective, came as a sweet news to me and made me look up to the photography show they were hosting over a weekend with great interest. I was even more eager to catch up with the show as i had been following works of Sharan Devkar, one of the participants, and found his oeuvre to be of an exciting  range to look up to.

pc Sharan's fb page

The location of the venue in an apartments besides Thirumangalam metro station, as given in the address in the poster, set me up for what to expect of the venue. For these are the typical TNHB apartments that could not be missed by anyone who has been in the vicinity and can be easily traced to the 1960s when Annanagar was being developed as a planned settlement, post the Industrial exhibition held around Tower park. But what set me all excited was the revelation of how the energy of a bunch of art work can transform an otherwise modest and mundane space. It was this overwhelming experience and revelation that was the hallmark of this exhibition for me.

pc: Sharan's fb page

The exhibition had works of 6 artists- 3 from Chennai and 3 from other states. 

Divya's works were an exploration of a series of unobtrusive intrusions into and capturing poignant moments of the subtle drama in the everyday and the personal space, as evident around her living space, and at times in the public sphere. The potential drama played out by these passing moments is immense and can be very moving for a viewer open to take in the flux that transpires in this series. Adding rhythm and mood to the pathos in the photos is the mood she sets out in the short note so aptly quoting from the poem 'Somehow we survive' by Dennis Brutus. The poem and the photos compliment each other perfectly in an act of such rare and pulsing resonance between two art forms. 

The work of the poet is not to restore the connection between the inner and the outer, but to conjure phrases and images which make the painful difference between the self and the rest of the world all the more acute and laden with pathos.- David Ayers in 'Modernism'

Shankar Devkar's work was a series of diptychs put together in the form of little books. the books had an interesting cover design, apparently to suggest what was inside. However, in the absence of some prompting i had not figured out the idea of the book and was for quite sometime puzzled only looking at the cover design. When i approached Sharan with my anxiety, i was told that i had to open the books to figure it out. it was a fascinating world of surprising correlations and interesting patterns and pictures that was waiting to be explored inside. each book held a small bundle of joy in the unwrapping of the element of surprise in the found object/ pattern and the deciphering of a relation between the two pages of the book and finally looping back to figure how the cover design fits into the puzzle. Sharan's work was also interesting in that it held the promise of engaging a viewer with a playful bend of mind and equally as well with someone open to engaging deeply with the subject.

'art should not be judged as the simple impression of life, by standards of realism and fidelity, but should be understood as a stylized meditation which reflects the artist's creative and synthetic mode of seeing..' Roger fry in  'Vision and Design'

Cyril Paulrose' 'Dark room' was a kind of triptych with portraits of his grandmother seated in her living space. This work again resonated so well with the Whistler's 'Mother', that the artist had drawn inspiration from. The work was a meditation on loneliness, old age, helplessness and an eternal waiting. The lighting and the profiles helped improvise the mood of the series. 

Sushavan Nandy's work " Ebbing away of identity is a deeply engrossing work on the brunt borne by a people and a landscape as a result of lifestyle that degrades our environment and life's priorities that put livelihoods in danger. It is a stark documentation of a slowly dying habitat and the lives that hang on it's edges. The gravity of the issues this work has undertaken to project is immense and very moving. They are a mix of moods of poetic longing, a clinical procedure and a mournful lament.

Punith Hiremath's 'Religious dip' is a playful and disturbing work around double exposure, throwing disturbing questions on our ideas of the sacred and the profane.

Can art or any force be independent of the two great forces of imperialism and nationalism. James Joyce in 'Portrait of the Artist..'

Vivek Mariappan's work around the kitchen was a familiar work from an exhibit in a CPB show. The idea of locating it in the kitchen space of the facility somehow did not work for me.

It was exciting and exhilarating to witness this show, and be witness to a historical moment when a bunch of young talents have come together and silently work on shaking Annanagar  out of it's deep, laid back, retired, slumber. 

pc Sharan's fb page

This Monday morning,  the space would have transformed back into it's usual office bay. I had insisted the show should be on for a longer time for more people to engage with it, and have requested them to put this show back on during the next weekend as well. I am hoping more people do get to engage with this show.

My sincere and heartfelt salutes to the people of MAD collective who have taken the heart to host and support art and activate a locality. May this breed prosper.

These avant gardists considered themselves to represent the few who had to advance into unknown territory in order that the rest of the society could follow..

Oh that's Bhanu

Chennai's own documentary film maker, Ramani feels the gravity and is enamored by the 'artistic' presence in the proximity and touch of Bhanu during their first meeting with the 92 year old Bhanumathi Rao, and instinctively asks Maya Rao, Bhanu's elder daughter, if he could make a film on Bhanu. Maya had some how seen this coming, as she had noticed how possessed Ramani looked during the brief interaction with her mother. What then started was a film that was 5 years in the making, with footage shot on and off between Delhi and Bangalore, and culminates in the documentary 'Oh that's Bhanu',that was premiered in Chennai this Sunday and also has already earned Ramani the Balakailasam Memorial award, in its fifth year, instituted by Cinema Rendezvous, who also hosted the screening.

Ramani is known for the personal streak in his film making. He is a constant presence in his films. even if he doesn't appear on the screen, you can feel his presence. This film revels in and has let this style prosper and bloom to it's fullest glory, more so because it adds spice to the Chemistry between the beautiful soul of Bhanu and the enamored spirit of Ramani.

The viewer is smitten by Bhanu, right from the first shot, just as much as Ramani claims to have been in their first meeting. it's quite difficult to identify what is it about Bhanu that ties the viewer tightly up to this close to 2 hour long movie. 

At one level Bhanu is this 95 year old lady who has the spirit of a young girl. Her walk is a march of joy, it resounds with the the jubilance and self assuring feeling of walking free of any support or a stick. 

Bhanu is this loving friend when she courts Ramani with a warmth of making friendship every time they meet; she is this obedient child when she waits for instructions to get down from the car; she is this complaining house holder when she talks about the mali; she is the purposeful and devoted student when learning music; she is a possessed lady while immersed in music and dance; she is the busy mother in Maya's recounting;  she is a coy young widow lovingly reminiscing memories of the good times with her husband; she is a dark koel in the lush green groves of  Calicut; she is the performer who loves to play the jester; she is the independent minded who loves socialising; and she is the caring comrade who dips into her own insecurities of the past and is bothered about Ramani's future.

At another level, Bhanu is troubled by memory. Unlike others who might feel defeated or frustrated by the loss of memory, Bhanu is happy accepting it for a fact and makes it interesting for her and for us by playing around this handicap by inventing stories of the past and improvising in the present. 

Bhanu's memory is tricky and is fascinating and exciting for that reason. She does remember some facts. for instance she remembers her year of birth, can identify her grand parents in a photograph and can even identify Indira Gandhi in a photograph, but she can't remember who she learnt Bharathanatyam from, but has no doubts that she learnt it in Madras. Her brilliance sizzles when she remarks how sad it is that we keep remembering things that we wish to forget.

Every time she meets Ramani, he has to go through the motion of introducing himself and answering curiosity of how does he mange a living. Ramani makes himself vulnerable in this sequence;  but every time it sounds different and the coolness of a rock that Bhanu shows in not blinking while asking the same question for the umpteenth time, the innocence and genuineness she radiates in her curiosity are never tiring and ever interesting because of the freshness it reeks of, in spite of the repetition. 

Bhanu revels in the gaze of the camera. she is an ever green performer, ever happy to make herself up and ever ready to perform. she courts the gaze of the camera and flirts with it in a very romantic way. she is at her spontaneous best and bursts with energy and quick wits all through the movie. She is in fact the one who comes up with a name for the movie about herself. there is never a dull moment when she is around.

she is ever obliging for the camera and even the occasional walking away as a result of tiredness, is very soon followed by another flash of a performance. Ramani seems to have had a good measure of Bhanu's moods and capabilities, and his camera never gives up even Bhanu walks away. The capturing of the wonderful and spirited dancing sequence in the garden is a gift won by this perseverance of Ramani's camera. 

Ramani has brilliantly used this dynamic Bhanu-scape to investigate and make us reflect on the nature and role of memory. It is thrilling to watch the process of Bhanu pick upon some cues from Maya and perform spontaneously , while retrieving from her physical memory of the mudras while performing a Kathakali piece. The evident tension, and the supple creation of a performance from the thin air of a distant memory of a training is a glorious sequence that can summon an aesthetic equal in a 'time motion' captured blooming of a flower.

It is also quite fascinating how Bhanu keeps coming up with some brilliant articulations brimming with wisdom and makes the viewer pause and wonder how can a someone with a faltering memory produce such brilliant articulations.

Ramani uses the siblings Maya and Tara to bring out different facets of Bhanu. Through the stories shared by the daughters we get a fair idea of Bhanu's early life and the influence she has been on her daughters. Maya comes across as the more tightly bonded of the two. The mother and daughter constantly draw inspiration from each other. Bhanu jovially drops a remark that she likes the 'people' in Delhi better and Maya is brimming with thoughts about her mother that invariably find place in her works like 'loose women', excerpts of which Ramani so beautifully captures and juxtaposes fragments of the performance with what could be perceived as the seed in Bhanu.

While Bhanu comes across a person obssessed with 'performance' while she is in Delhi with Maya, she seems to be a different person when she is Bangalore with Tara. In Bangalore, she is obsessed with music, trying to learn it and trying to unravel a new strand of herself through music, again another flash of brilliance in articulation.

when one looks back at the end of the film there is not much we get to know about the biographical details of Bhanu's life. But that is not Ramani's brief and i am not complaining.

Ramani has not approached the subject of Bhanu through an investigative lens of her early life , character, etc. He has rather let us just relish the beauty of Bhanu, letting her just be and letting stories drop by on their own and not going for a biographical and psychological dissection of the 'Truth'. Ramani has 'seen' the beauty in Bhanu, and through this film shares the joy of this beauty with us. 

Congratulations to Ramani on treating us to the joys of a beautiful mind and to Cinema Rendezvous for hosting the show.