“We travel for the unknown,” says the brochure of a six-member group of artists from Kochi who are currently on a two-week sojourn that melds group wanderlust with their individual artistic pursuits.
The group which earlier toured states such as Karnataka and Lakshadweep to stage theatre performances, packed their bags for the North East on May 5.
“Our aim is to spread the message of unity and equality that knows no boundaries, nor language,” says the members of the all-male group comprising Shabu K Madhavan, Manikandan, Abhilash Unni, Pradeep Raj,
Vinod Azheekkeri and T T Shivaraj. The artists who have made a name in the fields of theatre, painting, film making and photography would be covering Assam, Arunachal Pradesh and Nagaland as part of their tour.
This time, apart from theatrical performances, they have plans to explore the performance potential of various art forms. “We are planning to explore the possibilities of expressing a single theme through various genres. Even as the actors perform, you would see some of us drawing or sculpting based on the same theme,” says Shivaraj who handles the lighting for the theatre performances staged by the group.
Six short plays have been planned by the team on various themes, to be staged on venues arranged by Malayali Diaspora in these states.
“We are planning to perform on the streets, if we fail to get a stage,” Shivaraj says.
Since ‘unity’ is the key word for the team, ‘languages’ turn out to be a barrier of communication. To overcome the situation they invent new ‘imaginary languages’ according to the context. All the six plays designed by the group would employ ‘gibberish’ and they will resort to English or Hindi only when it is inevitable.
Apart from these well-rehearsed plays the group has plans to script and perform plays based on local themes after learning about the places they visit.
The group hopes to end their programme with a performance on a venue at the Indo-China border.