Imagine being in a quarry, the sun beating down on your back, the clang of metal against stone your only companion. This is the world artist V Saranraj invites us into. His audio installation is one of the seven exhibits/performances at the second edition of Take Flight, curated by Perch, a city-based theatre collective. The first edition had five artistes, including dancer Ramya Shanmugam’s video installation, Jasmine Village , which went on to win an award at the Calcutta International Cult Film Festival (CICFF).
This year, the grant-based programme (₹30,000 per person) — which enables artistes to explore themes that might have otherwise been overlooked — will once again be a ‘work in progress’ viewing. “Maybe that is the advantage we have,” admits Anushka Meenakshi, a member of the group. “There is no such thing as ‘final’ or ‘complete’. This also allows for feedback from the audience, which the artistes can incorporate.” At a time when not many organisations in the city offer a platform for ‘unfinished’ art(yes, we miss the Short + Sweet festival), Take Flight is a welcome change.
On the stage
This edition will see a mix of theatre, installations and film. Take, for instance, actor Prema Revathi’s Terrible Beauty , a raw take on domestic violence. The 40-minute solo theatre performance draws from her and her late mother’s experiences, along with literary references from Margaret Atwood’s Alias Grace and Ben Okri’s The Famished Road . “The attempt is to undo the beauty that surrounds intimate relationships,” she explains.
Also on stage will be theatre artiste Bagu Deen’s Thinainilavaasigal, with a play titled Paatigalum Pazhamozhi Kadhaigalum ( Grandmas and Stories with Morals ). Four actors — three men and one woman — play the grandmothers, adapting storytelling for the stage in a 45-minute performance. This includes tales by celebrated Tamil writer, Sanmugam.
Translator J Muthuvel will be showcasing an audio-visual reading of poetry, inspired by Chinese poet Xu Lizhi’s works on the struggles and aspirations of migrant workers. Finding similar themes in Singaporean, Malaysian and even Sri Lankan poetry, he says, “It made me think of mental illnesses and its awareness among the privileged. But the same cannot be said of the working class.” The 15-minute reading features 22 poems — “all honest, simple and genuine”— translated into Tamil and English.
Mirror of self
For art student Padmapriya, the fear of travelling alone led her to document other women who do so — for work or otherwise. From a woman auto driver’s daily struggles to a working woman on tour, her exhibit of pencil drawings and photographs will show what it is to be a woman on the move. “I am hoping to question safety and our transport system through this. It is only a starting point,” she says.
There will also be an interactive installation, Moving Paintings in Wood, by Dhakshini J, and Navaneetha Krishna Rajasekaran’s film on space-time reality told through indigenous folk tales. “A lot of creative work takes time to develop. It is nice to have a space that doesn’t assume or obsess about perfection,” concludes Meenkashi.
Take Flight 2019 is on at the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan on October 19 and 20, from 6 pm onwards.
