Priyam Jain sits cross-legged in a corner, a newspaper with sticky notes stuck on it, soap and a jug of water, spread out before her. She relates a story that could be anyone’s — the story of a toxic relationship that leaches your spirit, mind and soul, leaving you a bitter version of the person you used to be. The sticky notes represent memories; the ones that cling relentlessly to you, ones that hold you back. With sweeping, exaggerated gestures, she manages to dislodge those memories, bundles them together along with the newspaper that holds them and pours a jug of soapy water on the bundle, washing them all away.
This was one of the scenes of Visual Respiration’s experiential performance, A moment of memory , which saw four performers telling their own stories, enabling you to relive, explore and forget your own memories through the performance. Held across the various nooks and crannies of Ashvita Nirvana at Besant Nagar, the performance was divided into four sequences, all built across the concept of memory: faded, revisited, erased and lived.
Aruna Ganesh Ram, director of the production, explains, “I have used expressive gestures in this performance, not behavioural ones. For instance, if I wave goodbye, a behavioural gesture would be the waving of the hand. I have used gestures that elucidate how one feels while bidding farewell,” she says.
The performance, which ran for around 55 minutes, actively engaged the audience — the fourth wall didn’t just crack; it was demolished. You could feel the performers: their confusion, angst, fear, joy, relief, regret and, in some instances, it mirrored your own. Your senses were amplified all through the performance — from the warmth of Samridhi Purohit’s flame that represents the various facets of a revisited memory, the flavours and textures that explode on your tongue when you bite into Rohini Mundra’s version of chaat, the overwhelming nostalgia of Abhishek Misra’s waning memory. And the beginning was lovely, Rohini’s rendering of Take back the night by Manasi Subramaniam, which rang loud and clear over the honking of cars and the pealing of church bells.
“Performing one’s own life as a piece of theatre has been a challenging process. In a moment of memory, we have recreated a few moments of truth by intimately designing space, using expressive gestures and playing with the different senses,” says Aruna.
