When the train turns into a backstage for travelling stories

‘UR/Unreserved’ is a collaborative performance-based project involving various creative art forms

If all the world is a stage, a train can very well be the backstage for a group of performers who will be selected to be part of a unique journey spanning four States.

“UR/Unreserved” is a collaborative performance-based project involving dance, music, writing, and other forms of creative art. The journey is set to begin in August and is centred around the theme of identities.

“The idea is to start conversations around identities and see how these conversations can be transformed into performances once we get off the train. The idea was triggered by the exodus of people from the north east in 2012,” said Ekta Mittal, co-founder, Maraa, a Bengaluru-based media and arts collective that is spearheading the project.

The exodus was triggered by rumours of violence targeting them. “UR/Unreserved” will take off from there and explore similar stories of identities.

The unique initiative is at present on the lookout for a team of 14 performer-facilitators, project facilitator, project coordinators, and documenters.

They will be accompanied by the core team of Maraa. Bengaluru-based theatre person Anish Victor will be directing the project.

The team will at first be put through an orientation and a recce of the finer aspects of the journey, such as travel time, geographies, among others, before embarking on the real journey. The overall time that the chosen team will be putting into the project is around five months. “Everyone will be boarding one train and we will be spread across the train. We will have conversations on the train and see different perspectives,” Ms. Mittal said.

It is these conversations — through poetry, songs, magic tricks or other forms — that will drive the content for the performances that will happen once the team gets off the train at each of the four destinations beginning with Dhemaji, Assam.

The main concept of “identities” has not been “pre-decided” and has been kept “consciously open” because of this, she added.

Apart from exploring the concept of identity, “UR/Unreserved,” is also about exploring public spaces; the train as a public space which also serves as the metaphor of moving, as well as the spaces that will be turned into the stage at each of the destinations.

Regional collaborators will help with the latter, the organisers said.