What Einstein didn’t say

The play Beyond Binary comes to the city bringing a fresh perspective to sexual orientation and identity

August 12, 2014 05:04 pm | Updated April 21, 2016 04:13 am IST - Bangalore:

IT ALL ADDS UP Into understanding

IT ALL ADDS UP Into understanding

What really defines your identity? Is it you or the people around you? Tackling these questions from the perspective of sexual identity and answering it using social, religious, historical, legal and political contexts with a range of music, dance and theatrical movements comes Beyond Binary . The play, an Indo-Korean theatre collaboration presented by the Performance Group Tuida and produced by the InKo Centre and AsiaNow Productions, explores issues of sexual orientation and identity, drawing inspiration from Indian mythology.

Director Yosup Bae, a founding member and permanent director, combines puppets, performances and music and talks about how the play came to be.

Group: Performance Group Tuida Director: Yosup Bae Playwright: Co-Creation Languages: Korean, English and Tamil (with surtitles) Produced by: InKo Centre and AsiaNow Productions Time: 90 minutes (no interval) Rating: For mature audiences

After having scripted and directed internationally acclaimed performances such as You Can’t Say I Did It , Old Song’s Odyssey and Tale of Haruk , Yosup says the script for Beyond Binary is based on several interviews with sexual minorities during their research in India and Korea. “We chose the cases that can describe different aspects of the issue of sexual identity. And I requested performers to bring their personal perspective into the dialogues. I believe there are many different kinds of people and cases in the world of sexual minorities, which we can't simply define or explain. So I thought it is very important to show these people and their stories on the stage without making any changes and without being judgmental.”

This play is not only the movement beyond the binary, but also a starting point beyond the borders that discriminate everything, explains Yosup. On the inspiration drawn from Indian mythology, he says they don't talk about Indian mythology in itself in the production. “But, India’s mythological context and material inspired us to make a story and helped us use metaphors complemented by particular movements on stage.”

Yosup raises the question: “What is mythology?” and answers: “It is not only a story. I think mythology exists as a context for a human being who lives in this generation. The strongest mythological experience for me happened when I travelled with a transgender friend. I saw an auto rickshaw driver bowing to her on bended knees asking her to bless him. I felt that Indian mythological traditions still remain in peoples’ daily lives through such experiences.”

A chance to think

JOURNEY MAN Yosup Bae

What inspired the story behind Beyond Binary ?

Social systems, the world over, define ‘man’ and ‘woman’ in a prescribed manner and it pressurises society to accept this definition as final. But as I researched Indian mythologies, I found out many stories that tell us about people who cannot be categorised as either a man or a woman, and I could even find many stories about love between homosexuals. Through these mythologies I understood that Indian culture and society were traditionally generous in accepting sexual minorities when compared to earlier Korean traditions (there are changes nowadays though). So I started to think and create a story about sexual minorities in various cultural backgrounds.

How much of you is part of the play’s soul?

I act myself in the play as a traveller to represent the artistes who had a long journey for this production. At the same time, personally, this is my journey as well. I always had a question about gender boundaries between a man and a woman. This dichotomous classification troubled me sometimes with the issues that most people ignore and deny themselves. It seems that even the sexual minorities draw the line between 'common people' and themselves, and give up to live in the same boundary. But this kind of categorisation doesn't help people who don't belong to both sides.

What message do you want people to take back after watching the play?

I want this performance to provide a chance for audiences to think about people who are different from us. I want them to re-assess the prescribed standards of right and wrong and watch the performance itself. I want audiences to accept differences and recognise others as another part of ourselves. I hope that through the performance, we can begin to face those whom we have always considered as ‘the other’ equally without indiscriminate social judgement. But these might be too many wishes. I just want the audience to see and love the performance for itself, through the voices and the movements of the Indian and Korean artistes.

Catch Beyond Binary at Chowdaiah Memorial Hall on August 15 at 7.30 p.m.

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