This work is intimate and immersive and delves into the worlds of intimacy, touch and perception. Being based in the Indian context, there are the realities of gender, sexuality and caste that feature but very subtly and often metaphorically. It aims to normalise touch by placing the audience and actors in a non-separated scenario where everybody becomes witness and performer. The piece is paced in a way that encourages people to watch their own biases, desires, patterns, meaning-making tendencies and experiences. It is a sensorial and experiential journey that uses movement, voice the practice of “being” versus “doing” as its performative medium.

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It is a movement theatre piece and is performed by seven dancers.
 

I also offer the RORSCHACH TOUCH WORKSHOP to give interested viewers more access to the tools that were discovered in preparing for the piece. The workshop has become a transformative way for people to engage in their own journeys with intimacy and their personal memories and has been growing in momentum and impact. It also reflects trends and movements in society in the way the #metoo movement made the men more fragile, or the anger against the gender crimes in India, openness around queer and LGBTQ realities and parenting dilemmas around protecting and liberating one’s children, to site a few examples.

Choreographer: Diya Naidu
Producer: Goethe-Institut Bangalore, Sandox Collective, Orbis
Supported by: Shoonya - Centre for Art and Somatic Practices
Performers: Ajeesh K Balakrishnan, Akshata Joshi, Asha Ponikiewska, Dayita Nereyeth, Masoom Parmar, Niranjan Harish, Anishaa Tavag, Nihal Pasha, Priyabrat Panigrahi, Pia Bungalowala, Shikhar Martolia, Johanna Rodriguez, Kavya Viswanathan

Dramaturg: Sankar Venkateswaran

Light and tech: Sudeep Raj

Created for Gender Bender 2016 produced by Sandbox Collective and Goethe-Institut Bangalore.