The Background
This performance is part of Stepping Stones, a project anchored by feminist publishing house Zubaan, New Delhi, supported by the International Development Research Centre (IDRC, Canada) and the Max Mueller Bhavan, and builds on Zubaan’s work on the issue of sexual and gender-based violence. The project aims to take this work further using creative forms, such as theatre, spoken word, and other forms of performance to generate discussions on specific findings of the research studies.
The Idea
This piece started with a character that I wanted to play. A senior police woman. To me this was an interesting character to develop, because of the possibility of exploring the role of a woman in power in the context of sexual violence. Most often, even in my previous work, like Positively Shameless, women are usually in the role of victim/survivor and men are the perpetrators. And this is a very real scenario with a lot to explore and work with. But, I wanted to look at things, particularly with reference to sexual violence, from the point of view of a powerful woman who is ambiguously located vis-a-vis the issues.
The Process
This was the first time I was using a character as a starting point for a performance. Most often my work starts with the people in the room: their stories, experiences and most importantly their bodies! So what did it mean for me to first create a character: her physicality, her voice, her background, her politics, her personality. We began with the body – which for me is a familiar material – and explored stance, weight, movement, use of the eyes and how that could convey power. From there, that is from the character, I would work with an idea, such as impunity with regard to personal bias in a police investigation. I would get into the character and improvise around an idea from there. This was somewhat new for me, because for me improvisation has almost always been focused around the body and movement. Sound, text or words always emerge from the moving body. And there is no pressure to make conceptual sense! We used these improvisations to build the script.
Here’s an excerpt from my journal:
What is that feeling of being stuck in improv? And what is the feeling of being in the ‘zone’ or ‘flow’? Its very clear – the difference between the two. When ‘I’ - that is ‘Shabari’ am getting in the way there is a sense of being stuck or blocked. The act of emptying helps. 31st March 2019
The Performance
It is now a 20 minute piece. There are two strands to it. One where the police officer is giving a talk to college students, and the second is where the audience gets to see her in another place and time, dealing with a complex case, where she has to negotiate conflicting agendas. The first strand is performed in a realistic way, and the second is stylized in a way such that the body postures highlight the power dynamic being played out in the scene. At the end of 20 minutes there is a transition from the character back to me, Shabari, the performer. And that leads into a discussion with the audience on issues around sexual violence and impunity.
Credits
Conceptualized and performed by: Shabari Rao
Directed by: Maitri Gopalakrishna and Shabari Rao
Content expert: Rohini Mohan
Documentation and Assistant Director: Navya Sah
Production and rehearsal assistant: Noor Sengupta