A motley group of people — boys in jeans, women in salwar-kurtas, older men in sweatpants — line up in the courtyard of the Tamil Nadu Eyal Isai Nataka Manram: they’re ready to try out the newest move that Malik Diouf and Sasha Alexander Biloshisky have just showed them. On stage, Alister O’Loughlin and Miranda Henderson shepherd a bunch of noisy children, teaching them to move across an inclined board in the safest way possible.
The four instructors are part of the Urban Playground Team (UPGTeam) from the U.K., a performance parkour company that has been touring Tamil Nadu over the past week as part of research for its latest project, ‘Indian Steam’.
Alister, who is also the company manager, says, “Last May, we premiered a performance called Steam in the U.K. It is based on the idea that we discover the remains of a steam locomotive and we bring it back to life by telling stories. We have a series of scenes, such as James Bond and Buster Keaton’s The General , that are meant to be playful and familiar to the audience, The General and conclude with the dark future of inner-city commuting, where the fight for seats gets so extreme that they invent a new martial art called Commuté (rhymes with karate).” It’s highly interactive, with the team inviting some of the audience on stage, training them, and making them performers instead. This is what they want to replicate in Indian Steam , but tailored to an Indian audience.
“We were thinking of places where trains are iconic and important, and India seemed to be one of those places,” explains Miranda, talking about how the project came about. “Just by chance, there happened to be a funding application from the Arts Council England and the British Council to celebrate 70 years of Indian Independence in 2017,” she says. Alister adds, “During our research, we saw that TN has one of the only working steam trains left in the world; the Nilgiris Mountain Railway takes ordinary people to the places they live and work in. It was an amazing journey on a steam train that’s still fulfilling its original function.” Miranda interjects, “But the best part for us was walking down to the engine shed at Coonoor; the reception that we received when we told them about the project! They said you have to come back and perform for us.”
Working in partnership with Chennai-based Parkour Circle — co-producing, teaching and choreographing — the UPGTeam’s plan is to go to five locations and run residencies for about four days, during which they will work with participants to create new scenes for an Indian equivalent to the existing British scenes.
“Our participants will perform in the show while we are in the place where they live. So, whether it’s young or differently-abled people from the Shakthi Special School in Puducherry performing in front of a community that expects them to stay indoors, or whether it’s the village we performed at, outside Namakkal, where a 65-year-old woman played the most active role in our workshop, we would like to put them on stage with us,” says Alister.
All of their travels have been by train as far as possible, which gave them a very different view of the country. “What most people in Britain know is North Indian culture, and part of the brief of this job was to go to places which were less obvious. It’s our first time in India, and the overwhelming thing is how kind people are and how welcoming. I don’t know if we would find that in the U.K.,” laughs Miranda.
Malik adds, “For me, the culture is so rich and it reminds me of Africa, from where my parents are. When we went to the villages here, they shared everything they knew about movement and culture, and it was the best experience.” Sasha agrees, saying, “It’s so vibrant and the people are so generous. The weather might have made us feel hot, but the people made us feel warm.”
All four had their culinary favourites: chicken biryani for Malik, dosais, uthappams and breads for Alister and pretty much anything on the menu was good for Miranda. However, it’s Sasha’s mention of vazhaipoo vadais and lassi that makes Malik say, “I don’t want to go back home!”
The Urban Playground Team’s guide to parkour
