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.
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.
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.
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| 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.
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