BENGALURU: How do you execute “being” without “performing? This is a problem performers of Rorschach Touch are dealing with as they rehearse repeatedly authentic reactions that real people/bodies have upon meeting for the first time for their premier performance on July 1.
“The primary process for Rorschach Touch is designed to create minutely choreographed and carefully chosen movement sequences from real life, intimate situations,” says choreographer Diya Naidu.
Seven cast members will be performing at the premier shows in July. The piece requires performers to be present in the now and react to what’s happening. “Repeating the same movement again and again drains it of the first emotional familiarity. How to keep that intact without actually “performing”? That’s challenging,” says dancer Masoom Parmar.
Masoom comes from a family of musicians and belongs to the rare breed of Muslim classical dancers. Currently under the tutelage of Guru Kiran Subramanyam and Sandhya Kiran, he has been training in Bharatanatyam for 22 years.
Another performer Asha Ponikiewska says, “The challenge lies in finding the balance between these two layers - truth of the moment and memory of choreographic score,” she says.
Born in Poland, Asha has been residing in India from last 15 years. A graduate from DU, she has trained in Bharatanatyam, Seraikella Chhau, yoga and contemporary dance.
What you see in the performance as an audience, is your interpretation. Like the Thematic Apperception test from which the piece borrows its name - the reading of the happenings on stage lie with you. “So, if your reading is primarily gendered, or interrelation then you will see these things of course. The primary narratives though will be different if you were to watch two shows,” explains Diya.
As the piece plays out, gender, sexuality and intimacy will give way to other subtler and more nuanced questions and interpretations. “The hope is that eventually you will witness, your own ways of seeing, choosing and meaning making,” she says.
Something that Diya says to herself before rehearsal every day, is to work with the people - the human beings that have offered themselves to this process. So almost all the material is from things that the performers have devised or put out there during the rehearsal. “The idea is to take their humanity and compose it for you to watch slowly and closely. I rarely think of what gender, sexual identity or racial identity they represent,” says Diya.
So, how did the concept of the production come about? Much of it was an accident, recalls Diya. In 2014, she was commissioned by two female dancers- Sahiba Singh and Aastha Gulati to make a piece on them. They were both overworked and tired and so what came up was the intense desire to sleep some more. “So, I asked them to go to sleep - only, to do it in contact with each other. This lead to finding different ways for two bodies to sleep with each other. I slowly began to create the context for the piece by watching them sleep and wake up in different ways,” she says.
A small 12-minute piece was thus created that was primarily about the tender, playful, domestic and safe relationship between female companions. A year later, Diya recomposed the piece with males, females and non-dancers that led to a 23-minute long piece.
Diya has decided to present the production in only intimate settings such as studios, galleries and spaces that allows the audience to get very close to the performers. “We are asking you to look at people in deeply personal acts and moments. I suppose what is unique is that we are also interested in you, experiencing yourself through the piece,” she adds.
Asha and Masoom claim that experiencing the performance as an audience is a subjective thing. “A certain moment you might feel sexual to me, while it could be humorous for someone else. How the piece displays different states is very subjective,” says Masoom.
One thing that Asha is sure of is that as a performer she has to find her own ‘truth’ in whatever she does or “the audience won’t be able to experience anything beyond the purely physical layer of what is happening on stage”.
An actor friend of Diya who recently sat in on rehearsals called it “an interpretation of sleep, fondness and mischief”. “This was quite revealing - for him it was therefore a kind of journey through these states and between them. For him, gender barely showed up,” she says.
For another friend, watching the very same rehearsal, it was predominantly about male energy and for yet another it was about touch and intimacy, adds Diya.
It truly is all about interpretation and perception with Rorschach Touch, says Diya.