There is something enigmatic and mysterious about the moon. Poets have written odes to it. It has been considered magical in ancient rituals and practices. Using the moon as a central trope, Mumbai-based performance artiste Sujay Saple has created a devised performance, Moonfool .
Moonfool premiered to acclaim in Auroville and Pondicherry last year, followed by a Mumbai premiere at the NCPA Centrestage, 2014 Festival and later at Prithvi Theatre, Mumbai.
A collaboration between theatre performers and contemporary dancers, Moonfool explores notions of love, loss and longing through a combination of dance, text and imagery. Sujay says the performanceis an exploration of emotionality and the body. “It is about love and longing and parallely about the moon as an object of longing,” says Sujay, artistic director of Shapeshift Collective.
Moonfool comprises a series of vignettes. “There are some sections that have dance and movement. Some sections have dialogue. Some sections have sound. It has a nice mix. But the performance has an arc, which some can comprehend and everyone can understand experientially,” says Sujay, whose other production was Unselfed .
Using myths, folktales and poems, Moonfool involved a lot of research. “It was a constant process of finding and researching. While we were creating the piece, there were some images that came. If we were excited by some stories or poems we had read, we explored it.
Sujay, who has worked variously as a performer, an assistant director, movement workshop conductor and award-winning lighting designer, and briefly trained in physical theatre with Adil Hussain in Hampi, speaks about what a devised performance entails. “It is nothing like a conventional play. In a play, the playwright is at the centre. But in a devised performance, the focus is on the actors and the production is created through a process of improvisation. On a day-to-day basis, the performance shapes itself, almost like a Pandora’s box, and one idea leads to another. Over time, slowly, connections are made, links begin to form.”
Moonfool comprises a powerful cast: Arpit Singh, Dipna Daryanani, Himanshu Singh and Maithily Bhupatkar. “Dipna is a dance artiste, who has trained in jazz, ballet, modern and yoga. Maithily is trained in Bharatnatyam and has been exploring contemporary movement for some years. Arpit is a Kalaripayattu artiste and an actor. Himanshu is an actor and photographer and has also trained in ball room dancing and ballet.”
Moonfool will be performed on May 16 and May 17, at 3.30 pm and 7.30 pm, at Rangashankara, J.P. Nagar. Tickets are available on bookmyshow.com and indianstage.in.
