EXPLORE | DREAM | CREATE
Daughters Opera
Image Courtesy: Kate Blackmore
Woyzeck
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Monsoon Wedding Musical
Image Courtesy: Mirabai Films
UNTITLED TRILOGY
The three parts of Untitled Trilogy comprise: the re-staging of a historical trial that took place in pre-Independent India; an enactment of a post-Independence People's Tribunal; and a theatre text that contemplates an alternate national future.
The trilogy unfolds from December 2023 through March 2024, as a series of public rehearsals foregrounding the fragmented and untidy processes of thought and related notions of contingency, interruption, augmentation, repetition, version and rupture that are usually obscured by the 'real thing' of performance.
Directed by: Zuleikha Chaudhari.
EXTANT: A QUEER HAPPENING
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Extant is a 40-minute immersion into a tapestry of kaleidoscopic elements that embrace the spirit of queer life force. Much like at a Queer Ball, an eclectic array of performance acts converge in this Happening to create a dynamic mosaic of many shades of queerness.
Featuring: Aabshaar Wakhloo, Denis Barwa, Ishaan Osheen, Jasmine Yadav, Katyayini Pant, Mohit Raj Thapa, Parinay Mehra, Vidur Sethi and Zahra. Music: Rishabh Bhan Singh. Movement Director: Manjari Kaul. Costume design: Nimish Shah, Bhaane. Dramaturgy: Indranjan Banerjee. Light design: Deepa Dharmadhikari. Directed by: Nikhil Mehta
HALLUCINATIONS OF AN ARTIFACT
Can an ancient artifact think, move and respond to our current times? Can it live, perspire, breathe, evolve and transform through dancing bodies?
Hallucinations of an Artifact disrupts simplistic narratives around the Dancing Girl of Mohenjo-Daro (c. 2300-1750 BCE) by bringing to life this irreverently playful and notoriously unclassifiable artifact through dance and artificial intelligence.
Featuring: Akanksha Kumari, Manju Sharma and Meghna Bhardwaj. Visual Artist and Environment: Jonathan O’Hear. Music Composer: Anirban Ghosh (Baan G). Opening Track: Marcel Zaes. Choreographed by: Mandeep Raikhy.
THE NIGHTS
The Nights reimagines tales that have been told across centuries; sometimes as exotic entertainments, sometimes as moral fables, but always as chronicles of a dream.
At its heart, The Nights is about Scheherazade, our storyteller, who must enchant her captor over a thousand and one nights so she can be a survivor, so she can be a witness. dream.
Featuring: Anurupa Roy, Md. Shameem, Avinash Kumar, Kriti M Pant, and Neel Chaudhari. Script writer: Adithi Rao and Neel Chaudhari. Light Design: Bharavi. Sound Designer: Neel Chaudhari. Costumes: Gunjan Arora. Choreography: Avinash Kumar. Puppet design: Maneesh Pachiaru, Md. Shameem, Asha, and Anurupa Roy. Directed by: Anurupa Roy.
TEARS OF JEENABAD
If your smart phone screen was your own Black Box, what would you stage?
Tears of Jeenabad is a crowd-sourced virtual play created as a part of BBO’s online programming - Black Box Okhla in the Clouds.
BBO engaged virtually with over 200 audience members through online polls and questions to devise a new play on Instagram. After 10 days of interactions, Tears of Jeenabad was released - the story of Ria, an Astronaut trapped at the edge of Jeenabad - a city at the risk of being completely wiped out. Can Ria save the day?
Created by: 200+ Audiences on Instagram and Facebook. Visualized by: Aparajita Komanduri. Conceived by: Nikhil Mehta and Akhila Khanna
THE PERSISTENCE OF BEING
Image Courtesy: Chandni Sarcar
Image Courtesy: Chandni Sarcar
Image Courtesy: Chandni Sarcar
Image Courtesy: Chandni Sarcar
We live in desperate times. Do they call for desperate measures?
The Persistence of Being casts dancing bodies into mutual modes of being, with intentional urgency. It is about everything, and yet it isn’t about anything in particular. It fabricates a fragile and taut web of ideas that manifest themselves in relation to each other. Tug at one, and the other begins to unravel. Sometimes, ideas collapse like they have been punched in the gut, making the web implode upon itself. And at other times, nothing happens.
In the times we live in, what does performance as ecology mean for our experience of the world?
Featuring: Abhijeet Chaturvedi, Akanksha Kumari, Arman Kainth, Aseng Borang, Anoushka Upadhyay, Deepali, Firoz Haider, Gunjan Gupta, Jasmine Yadav, Jyoti Dubey, Madhuri Singh, Neelakshi Malik, Pallavi Verma, Srijaa Kundu and Varsha Seth. Choreography: Abhilash Ningappa in collaboration with the students of the MA Performance Practice (Dance) programme
DAUGHTERS OPERA
Image Courtesy: Kate Blackmore
Image Courtesy: Kate Blackmore
Image Courtesy: Kate Blackmore
Image Courtesy: Kate Blackmore
Daughters Opera is an inter-cultural contemporary performance work that brings women from diverse backgrounds, cultures and languages in a cross-artform setting that aims to address the ongoing everyday acts of gender violence through the expressive form of Portuguese fado music, and live experimental electronics.
Featuring: Shilpika Bordoloi, Persephone Brennan, Samara Chopra, Aivale Cole, Bhumisuta Das, Melodi Dorcas, Uma Katju, Aashima Mahajan, Kimberly Rodrigues, Ritika Singh, Vanessa Varghese, and Purnima Yengkokpam. Musicians: Eduardo Baltar Soares, Miranda Hill and Mauricio Carrasco. Live Electronics: Marco Cher-Gibard. Devising of Hindi Text: Geetanjali Shree. Costume: Marty Jay. Lighting Design: Ben Hughes. Production Dramaturgy: Purav Goswami. Film and Video Design: Kate Blackmore and Midhun Mohan. Production Manager: Taha Abdul Majeed. Scenography Fabrication: Sarthak Narula and Ujjwal Kumar. Production and Libretto: Tammy Brennan. Music Composer: David Chisholm. Scenography: Deepan Sivaraman. Movement Language and Choreography: Victoria Hunt. Directed by: Anuradha Kapur.
VATAPI
Image Courtesy: Saurabh Sibal
Sketch Courtesy: Vishal K. Dar
Diagram Credit: Poppy Seed Lab
Image Courtesy: Saurabh Sibal
Inspired by the thicket of a black box and the transformative qualities of light, Vatapi re-imagines perspective outside of cartesian geometry and the ways in which we view our physical world.
The audience is invited to experience a field of light, sculpture and sound through a time-coded set of conditions, oscillating within the space. Presented as an on-going exploration of the artists' engagement with light and sight, condition and duration, myth and technology.
Conceptualised and Created by: Vishal K. Dar and Poppy Seed Lab
Sound Courtesy: Sounds of Magnetosphere from Polar Plasma Wave Investigation, Univerity of Iowa Archives
RIHLA
Image Courtesy: Oroon Das
Image Courtesy: Yashas Chandra
Image Courtesy: Yashas Chandra
Image Courtesy: Oroon Das
An adaptation of Andreas Flourakis' 'I Want A Country'.
As we navigate a period where what it means to be a citizen is being redefined, we explore with young people the world they imagine for tomorrow, and how to make it a reality. What are their stories around belonging and the world they want to live in? Performed by11 young repertory members from Hazrat Nizamuddin Basti who are all founding members of the organisation.
By Aagaaz Theatre Trust. Featuring: Saddam, Nagma, Jasmine, Ismail, Shahid, Tuba, Muzammil, Zainab, Nagina, Aslam, Nahid. Translated by: Rahul Rai. Stage and Visual Design: OddWorks. Lighting Design: Deepa Dharmadhikari. Production Management: Sanyukta Saha. Publicity Design and Stage Management: Devika Bedi. Production Assistance: Chathrapati Singh. Assistant Direction: Sakhi Upadhyaya. Directed by: Neel Chaudhuri.
FOR THE RECORD
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
1971: A tribunal is tasked with selecting three artefacts that represent India to the world.
2018: Transcripts of the tribunal meetings are released to the public.
2019: “For The Record” recreates the deliberations, the disputes and the drama!
Featuring: Dhwani Vij, Kriti Pant, Krittika Bhattacharjee, Kshitij Mervin, Neel Sengupta, Niharika Lyra Dutt and Prashant Prakash. Sound Design: Dhruv Rai. Lighting Designer: Deepa Dharmadhikari. Lights Operator: Aroon Jindall. Set Construction: Anil Sharma. Lead Electrician: Ashok Kumar. Photography: Nayantara Parikh. Directed by: Nikhil Mehta.
MONSOON WEDDING MUSICAL
Image Courtesy: Mirabai Films
Image Courtesy: Mirabai Films
Image Courtesy: Mirabai Films
Image Courtesy: Mirabai Films
The perfect storm starts brewing when family members from around the world descend on Delhi for a nonstop four-day celebration of an arranged marriage between a modern upper-middle-class Indian family’s only daughter and an American guy she’s never met. But the bride is having an affair, her father’s financial troubles deepen, and dark family secrets surface. The forecast calls for drama, love, hope, laughs, and a whole lot of rain.
Featuring: Akshay Sharma, Ankur Sabharwal, Anisha Nagarajan, Boloram Das, Charu Shankar, Faezeh Jalali, Gagan Dev Riar, Joyeeta Dutta, Kaveri Sheth, Mansi Multani, Meher Mistry, Mirvaan Vinayak, Namit Das, Puja Sarup, Rahul Tewar, Sharvari Deshpande, Sorab Wadia, Swaroopa Ghosh and Waseem Alzer. Music: Vishal Bhardwaj. Book by: Sabrina Dhawan and Arpita Mukherjee. Lyrics: Masi Asare and Susan Birkenhead. Movement Directors: Scott Graham and Eddie Kay. Choreography: Payal Kadakia. Scenic Design: Tim Hatley. Costume Design: Aneeth Arora and Himanshu Shani. Lighting Design: Arghya Lahiri. Sound Design: Scott Lehrer. Orchestrations: Jamshied Sharifi. Music Direction: Julie McBride. Stage Manager: Candice Wilson. Production Manager: OranJuice. Producer: Rahul Chitella. Photographs Courtesy: Mirabai Films. Co-Directed by: Mira Nair and Nikhil Mehta.
WOYZECK
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
An unfinished, fragmented classic by the German playwright George Büchner, Woyzeck is the story of a young man's descent into madness as he grapples with his place in the world.
Featuring: Farhad Colabavala, Ariella Dawn, Piyush Kumar, Uma Katju, Madhav Mehta, Kshitij Mervin Ekka, Samar Sarila, Shaik Sheeba. Lighting Design: Deepa Dharmadhikari. Production Manager: Mukesh Gupta. Lighting Programmer and Operator: Arun Jindal. Sound Design: Dhruv Rai. Associate Scenic Design: Vanya Vaishnavi. Poster Design: Nadia Shervani. Front of House: Tanya Malik. Set Construction: Anil Sharma. Lead Electrician: Ashok Kumar. Photography: Nayantara Parikh. Directed by: Nikhil Mehta.
THE SHAKUNTALA PROJECT
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Night after night, confined within the four walls of an apartment, a Man and Woman re-live Kalidasa’s Shakuntala. Uprooting their existence as they frantically strive for something better, something different – do they succeed?
Featuring: Sharvari Deshpande and Prashant Prakash. Lighting Design: Deepa Dharmadhikari. Scenic Design: Brittany Vasta. Original Music: Jahn Sood and Brian Cavanagh-Strong. Production Manager: Mukesh Gupta. Poster Design: Nadia Shervani. Marketing: Crow. Lighting Operator: Arun Jindal. Sound Operator: Dhruv Rai. Camera Operator: Ariella Blank and Debjit Banerjee. Stage Manager: Shruti Sunder. Photography: Nayantara Parikh. Directed by: Nikhil Mehta.
KARKHANA
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Image Courtesy: Nayantara Parikh
Based on R.W. Fassbinder’s Katzelmacher.
Set in 1972, or perhaps the present, Karkhana traces the lives of employees in an office as they attempt to break out of their mundane routines with raging affairs (real and make believe), disco mob dances, violent confrontations, high octane gossip sessions and karaoke breaks.
Featuring: Vardaan Arora, Farhad Colabavala, Mallika Dua, Nitya Kukreja, Vidushi Mehra, Madhav Mehta, Luke Noble, Mehek Panjabi, Kriti Pant, Sudheer Rikhari, Rahul Tewari. Lighting design: Deepa Dharmadhikari. Lighting Assistant and Operation: Gopal Verma. Scenic and Costume Design: Portia Elmer. Dramaturgy: Promona Sengupta and Amanda Culp. Stage Manager: Tanya Malik. Production Manager: Mukesh Gupta. Publicity Stills: Manu Sharma. Sound Operator: Anuja Singh. Graphics: Soumya Parker. Photography: Nayantara Parikh. Directed by: Nikhil Mehta.