2020 | Vikram Iyengar<\/p>\n
Inter-Disciplinary | India<\/p>\n
RIVERS OF MEMORY<\/strong><\/p>\n A Multitude of Drops \/ Cyprus ~ India<\/strong> CREDITS:<\/p>\n Concept and Direction: Vikram Iyengar<\/p>\n Project Collaborators: Lav Kanoi, Vicky Long<\/p>\n Research and Development: Vikram Iyengar, Lav Kanoi<\/p>\n Workshop and Devising: Vikram Iyengar, Lav Kanoi, Amlan Chaudhuri<\/p>\n Choreography and Movement: Vikram Iyengar, Amlan Chaudhuri<\/p>\n Devised and Created with: Andreas Patsias, Evie Demetriou, Lyda Karayianni, Marian Kyprianou, Marita Anastasi<\/p>\n Thinking Partner: Maria Hadjimichael<\/p>\n Lighting Design: Amlan Chaudhuri<\/p>\n Video Design: Kunal Chakraborty<\/p>\n Sound Design and Arrangement: Subhagata Singha, Vikram Iyengar<\/p>\n Original Texts from: Various works by Amitav Ghosh, Vicky Long, Kunwar Narayan, Maria Hadjimichael et al Ganga Stotram (Adi Shankaracharya), Rg Ved, Shiva Tandav Stotra Personal contributions of company<\/p>\n Translations to English: Lav Kanoi<\/p>\n Vocals: Rajeshwari Ganguly Banerjee<\/p>\n Voices (Text): Anubha Fatehpuria, Lav Kanoi, Amlan Chaudhuri<\/p>\n Voices (Mnemonics): Vikram Iyengar, Samila Bhattacharya<\/p>\n Acknowledgements: Nayia Karacosta, Belinda Papavasileiou, Vicky Long, Jayati Chakraborty, Malavika Banerjee<\/p>\n Co-production: Ranan India (Calcutta) & Buffer Fringe Festival, Cyprus<\/p>\n <\/p>\n About the Process:<\/p>\n A Multitude of Drops<\/i><\/em>\u00a0emerges from performance research and extended workshops investigating the climate crisis and artistic responses to it. The Sundarbans in south Bengal are experiencing rising sea-levels, salinity, cyclones, and unplanned development. This creates displacement of every kind \u2013people, cultures, and ecologies. Cyprus is projected to face temperature increase, decline in rainfall, and desertification. Water gives life, but also takes it away. The climate crisis is a fallout of lifestyles we are unwilling to change. This piece\u2019s structure and process shares artistic work from process to performance, without needing to tour a whole company \u2013 thereby reducing carbon footprint. It proposes a new perspective on artistic ownership. Each version of the work adds co-creators and stakeholders to a growing collective, encouraging responsibility within the process of ourselves and others, as well as of the ecologies which support us and the planet we call home.<\/p>\n
\nRivers of Memory<\/strong><\/em>\u00a0is the first in a series of performance pieces called\u00a0A Multitude of <\/em>Drop<\/em>s, imagined and created by Vikram Iyengar along with various collaborators. A Multitude of Drops emerges from performance research and extended workshops investigating the climate crisis and artistic responses to it, and builds bridges between areas like the Sundarbans in India and other parts of the world. In\u00a0Rivers of Memory<\/em><\/strong>, we explore our various relationships to water, land and all they stand for, moving fluidly between the Sundarbans mangrove forests in the vast south Bengal delta and the rivers and shores of the island of Cyprus. The piece has been built with and through specific rhythm structures and variations from the Indian dance form of kathak , along with movement and text improvisations developed with the cast over a collaborative workshop. Journeying with myth, memory, history, geography, politics and personal experiences, we examine the intricate interconnections that draw our environments together as well as pull them apart.<\/p>\n