PLATFORM PLUS
A new addition to the festival in 2017, Platform Plus presents Indian artists who have carved a niche with their work and have emerged as important players in the field of contemporary movement arts.
Can performed intimacy make an argument against an archaic law?
Played out on a charpoy, Queen-size, examines the nuts and bolts – carnal, mechanical and emotional – of a close encounter between two male bodies, as a response to Section 377 of the Indian Penal Code that criminalises homosexuality in India. In deliberately making this encounter visible, it poses questions around spectatorship, privacy, and dissent. The work was triggered by Nishit Saran’s article ‘Why My Bedroom Habits Are Your Business’, first published in the Indian Express, January 2000.
Queen-size, runs in a 45-minute loop played continuously over two and a half hours. The audience can enter the performance space at specific intervals through this period, and stay for as long as they like.
Choreographer: Mandeep Raikhy
The creation of Queen-size was supported by
In the space of a square pit, a group of people negotiate the force of gravity within their bodies. Their endeavour is simple – to open themselves up to the public surrounding them through the simple actions of jumping, walking, standing, and sitting – to reflect upon the body and its physicality through the closeness of contact. In the process, they begin to construct a frame around three fundamental questions - who are we, where are we and where do we want to go.
To jump without artifice is to allow the truthful body to emerge. We have to act from our bodies today because our bodies are being stolen from us in the hyper-capitalist society that we live in. Our bodies are becoming safety valves and automatons in a choked democracy. We have to resist, in our times, the mediation of a bourgeoisie, from within the country and the neo-colonial powers from outside, in defining our contemporaneity; we have to keep our agency. It may be the only way to guard the critical energies released through creation from being co-opted by its opponents.
Choreographer: Preethi Athreya
Conditions of Carriage –The Jumping Project was made with support from India Foundation for the Arts under its Arts Practice programme. This piece is a co-production by the India Foundation for the Arts, Alliance FranÇaise of Madras, and SPACES.
FREE ENTRY
QUEEN-SIZE BY MANDEEP RAIKHY, INDIA
FEBRUARY 04 * 4.00PM
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE DE BANGALORE
135 MINS
Pro Helvetia- Swiss Arts Council, Japan Foundation,
Nishit Saran Foundation, and Gati Dance Forumrestricted to an audience 18+ only.
Tickets priced at Rs. 200 available at Attakkalari office and on bookmyshow.com
CONDITIONS OF CARRIAGE
- THE JUMPING PROJECT BY PREETHI ATHREYA AND COMPANY, INDIA
FEBRUARY 12 * 4.00PM
CHRIST UNIVERSITY (Basketball Court)