29/11/2017

NIGHT OF THEATRE n°10 • LA NUIT DES IDÉES

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Night of Theatre n°10 • La Nuit des Idées, amazing night-long festival of contemporary performing arts and inventive thought, took place on January 27 2018 at Trimukhi Cultural Centre in the Santhal tribal village of Borotalpada, West Bengal, India. Artists and philosophers from France, India, Japan, Canada and Mexico together with actors, dancers and musicians from Borotalpada village both showcased in situ sound, theatre, dance or dance-theatre performances and evolved in philosophical proclamations as well as in stimulative discussions about “flows of intensity”… before inviting all to join for a joyful dinner and then for a  joyful multicultural dance party until the sun rise again… This event was part both of Institut français’ international Nuit des idées (“Night of Ideas”) to celebrate all over the world the stream of ideas between countries, cultures, topics and generations, and of Bonjour India, a four-month-long celebration of Indo-French innovation, creativity and partnership.


 WITH Barbara Cassin [Paris] Jean-Frédéric Chevallier [Paris, Kolkata] Divya Dwivedi [New Delhi] Sandra Milena Gomez [Mexico]  Élodie Guignard [Paris] Motilal Hansda [Borotalpada village] Surujmoni Hansda [Borotalpada village] Marc Hatzfeld [Paris] André-Éric Létourneau [Montréal] Patrice Maniglier [Paris] Shaj Mohan [New Delhi] Chandrai Murmu [Bhangabhandh village] Tibru Murmu [Borotalpada village] Ikue Nakagawa [Tokyo, Bruxelles] Andres Solis [Mexico] and Paola Torres [Mexico city] PRODUCED BY Sukla Bar Chevallier [Kolkata] for Trimukhi Platform



 PRESENTED BY Trimukhi PlatformInstitut Français AND French Embassy in India IN PARTNERSHIP WITH Alliance Française du Bengale, The Japan Foundation New Delhil’Université du Québec à Montréal, HexagramFondo Nacional para la Cultura y las Artes de Mexico AND MACE


 

IN THE PRESS

 

Read the story in The Indian Express →

Read the editorial in The Telegraph →

Read the report in The Tmes of India →

Read the story in India Today →

Read the announcement in The Telegraph →

 

 

 

THE NIGHT LONG PROGRAMME

from 5:30 PM to 5:30 AM • subject to change without prior notice

photographies by Élodie Guignard for Trimukhi Platform (except few by Dhananjoy Hansda or Jean-Frédéric Chevallier)

 

ATANG DARAM • ONE DAY WILL I EXPLODE?


ATANG DARAM ONE DAY WILL I EXPLODE? santhal ritual of welcoming + sound installation

santhal ritual performed by Delkho Hansda, Falguni Hansda, Laxmi HansdaParboti Hansda, Panmoni Hansda, Sombari Hansda, Mado HembromShaloti Hembrom, Chinta Soren, Kapra Soren and Sukmoni Soren with the participation of Nirmola Mandhi, Regina Besra, Fulu Tudu, Songita Hansda, Raimoni Tudu, Jobarani Murmu, Nitali Mandi, Budhumoni Tudu, Laxmi MahatoSurujmoni Hembrom, Chintamoni Soren, Surujmoni Mandhi, Luchi Mandhi, Gurubari Soren, Parboti Mandi, Kakoli Hembrom and Ruma Soren sound design by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier sound installation by Sukul Hansda and Dulal Hansda


 

….


…. words of welcome

by Girish Soren (responsable of the construction of Trimukhi Cultural Centre), Motilal Hansda (Parani of Borotalpada village) and Fabrice Plançon (Director of Alliance française du Bengale)


 


জল ই জীবন । LA VIE DANS L’EAU theatre of presenting

directed by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier in collaboration with Surujmoni Hansda produced by Sukla Bar Chevallier for Trimukhi Platform director assistant Dhananjoy Hansda performed in the water and lighted by Dulal HansdaJoba Hansda, Chintamoni HansdaSurujmoni Hansda, Ramjit HansdaSukul HansdaSalkhan HansdaPini Soren, Lilian Hansda and Paromita Hansda with the participation of Nirmola Mandhi, Regina Besra, Fulu Tudu, Songita Hansda, Raimoni Tudu, Jobarani Murmu, Nitali Mandi, Budhumoni Tudu, Laxmi MahatoSurojmoni Hembrom, Chintamoni Soren, Surujmoni Mandi, Luchi Mandhi, Gurubari Soren, Parboti Mandhi, Kakoli Hembrom and Ruma Soren original texts, video projections and sound design by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier translation to Bengali Sukla Bar Chevallier translation to Santhali Trimukhi Platform



WHAT MOVES YOU? part 1  dance improvisation + philosophical capsule proclamations

dance improvisation by Ikue Nakagawa philosophical capsules written, proclamated in English and lighted by Divya Dwivedi and Shaj Mohan proclamation in Santhali by Motilal Hansda proclamation in Bengali by Gurubari Hembrom translation in Santhali by Boro Baske translation in Bengali by Sukla Bar Chevallier


 

NIUTEΤ RIA SARÉ


NIUTEΤ RIA SARÉ sound art wandering

directed by André Éric Létourneau in collaboration with Sukul Hansda and Alexandre St-Onge sound device conceived by Chandrai Murmu and built by Sukul Hansda and Dulal Hansda sounds and voices recorded and edited by Sukul HansdaDulal HansdaAndré Éric Létourneau and in Montréal by Isabelle Barzeele, Marc-André Cossette, Sophia Dallouli, Michel Duchesne, Stéphanie Dupuis, Mély Garde, Claudie Lévesque, Marc Pelletier



সব মুখ সব নাম । JOTO NIUTUM JOTO MÉNHA  video installation

installation designed by Sukla Bar Chevallier and Surujmoni Hansda video editing by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier video images and sound taken from Night of Theatre n°1 to Night of Theatre n°10 by Proyecto 3 and Trimukhi Platform _ the installation remains open for the rest of the night


 


আলেগে আলেদিসম । ALÉGÉ ALÉDISOM photography exhibition

exhibition coordinated by Élodie Guignard in collaboration with Dhananjoy Hansda north wall photographies by Dananjoy HansdaDulal HansdaJoba HansdaChintamoni HansdaRamjit HansdaSalkhan Hansda,  Sukul HansdaSurujmoni Hansda and Pini Soren west wall photographies by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier south wall photographies by Élodie Guignard _ the exhibition remains open for the rest of the night



THE CAPSULES LIBRARY sound archive room

designed by André Éric Létourneau in collaboration with Patrice Maniglier interviews recorded by Motilal Hansda and André Éric Létourneau  _ the sound archive remains open for the rest of the night


 

THE NIGHT OF THEATRE 10th ANNIVERSARY


THE NIGHT OF THEATRE 10th ANNIVERSARY participative theatre performance

prepared in Mexico by Sandra Milena Gomez, Andrés Solis and Paola Torres put in practice by Chintamoni Hansda, Surujmoni Hansda and Marc Hatzfeld


 


words of anniversary

by Marc Hatzfeld translated and commented by Samantak Das





নাখামী । NAKAMI solo dance-theatre

directed and performed by Ikue Nakagawa light and sound Ramjit Hansda and Salkhan Hansda


 

 

ABOARD


ABOARD solo dance-theatre + philosophical capsule proclamation

directed by  Jean-Frédéric Chevallier and Ikue Nakagawa performed by Ikue Nakagawa philosophical capsule proclamation in Santhali by Dhanajoy Hansda and Chintamoni Hansda video Jean-Frédéric Chevallier torch lighting by Ramjit HansdaSalkhan Hansda and Surujmoni Hansda


 


RESKE ÉNÈD । WHAT MOVES YOU?  santhal dances + philosophical capsules proclamations

coordinated by Tibru Murmu in collaboration with Falguni Hansda music played by Ganesh Hansda, Patoram Hansda, Salge HansdaKalicharam Hembrom, Satho Hembrom and Chamru Soren dance performed by Chita Hansda, Delkho Hansda, Falguni Hansda, Laxmi Hansda, Parboti Hansda, Parmoni Hansda, Sombari Hansda, Gurubadi Hembrom, Chinta Soren, Kapra Soren and Sukmoni Soren philosophical capsules written and proclamated in English by Patrice Maniglier and Barbara Cassin proclamation in Santhali by Motilal Hansda proclamation in echo in French and Santhali by Chintamoni Hansda



জানুমজার মাঁথ জানুম । JANUMJAR MANTJANUM trio dance-theatre + philosophical capsules proclamations

directed by Ikue Nakagawa performed by Joba Hansda, Ramjit Hansda and Salkhan Hansda assistant director Sukul Hansda produced by Sukla Bar Chevallier for Trimukhi Platform philosophical capsules written and proclamated in English by Barbara Cassin and  Shaj Mohan proclamations in Bengali Gurubari Hembrom proclamation in Santhali Dhananjoy Hansda



INTENSITY FLOWS philosophical discussion

with Barbara Cassin, Jean-Frédéric ChevallierDivya Dwivedi, André Éric Létourneau, Shaj Mohan and Patrice Maniglier moderator Marc Hatzfeld translator Boro Baske


 


words of thanks

by Masayuki Taga (Consul General of Japan in Kolkata) and Kaoru Miyamoto (Director-General of The Japan Foundation, New Delhi) translation by Boro Baske



THE IMPROBABLE JOY part 1  diner for 300

diner cook under the direction of Buddhadev Dastracks



THE IMPROBABLE JOY part 2  multi-cultural dance-party

music tracks chosen by Trimukhi Platform


 

 

 

AFTER THE NIGHT

 

 

 

FABRIQUE DE L’ART • Conversation after the Night 2018

On 31st January 2018, 7 pm, at Alliance Française du Bengale as part of the French programme at Kolkata Bookfair


Trimukhi Platform‘s concern for questioning the contemporary ways of fabricating and enjoying arts works has taken a double shape: the organisation of a night-long festival in Borotalpada village and the publication of a bilingual journal in Kolkata. In this context, Nicolas Idier (Book office, Institut Français in India) and Jean-Frédéric Chevallier (Trimukhi Platform) invited Anjum Katyal (India) to discuss about the dynamics at the heart of Trimukhi Platform French-Indian publication Fabrique de l’art • Fabricate (Fabric of) Art and Barbara Cassin (France), Elodie Guignard (France), Marc Hatzfeld (France), André Eric Létourneau (Canada), Ikue Nakagawa (Japan), Fabrice Plançon (France, India) to share their thought after their experience in Borotalpada village for Night of Theatre • La Nuit des idées. To enrich the evening, after an introduction by Masayuki Taga (Consul General of Japan in Kolkata), Ikue Nakagawa (Japan) performed a solo dance she created few days before in Borotalpada village for Night of Theatre n°10 • La Nuit des idées and to stimulate the production of thought, wine was offered by the General Consulate of France in Kolkata.

More information →

 


 

 

 

 

 

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 A LIGHT IN THE DARK

FACETS OF PERFORMANCE

BY SAMANTAK DAS in THE TELEGRAPH Jan 17, 2018

It is so utterly dark that you need to reassure yourself that you possess a right hand by reaching out and touching it with your left. The others who are gathered with you are absent presences – they cannot be called ‘shadowy presences’, for there are no shadows here, only varying degrees of darkness. Then something happens – maybe a sound begins taking on something approaching articulate shape somewhere to your left, or perhaps a beam of light from a torch illuminates the figure of a woman a hundred metres away carrying something on her head, or then again it might be a bunch of strange luminous caterpillar-like objects flying up into the air and falling back again into what seems the illimitable earth. Or, maybe it is all three at once. You remind yourself that this is not some kind of bizarre psychedelic dream but a performance you are watching, over 200 kilometres from your city home, on the edge of a remote Santhal village in Jhargram, with no ambient electric light interfering with your peripheral vision and the broad, star-burst sky spread out above you. It’s close to midnight and you’ve been travelling and sitting, and watching, and listening, and talking since eleven in the morning – thirteen hours gone and you are still struggling to take it all in. But it is a struggle that you engage in willingly for this is something that you have never experienced before. Unexpected and strange in a myriad ways, but also reassuringly familiar and intimate, rather like an extended adda with newly-acquired friends.

This, more or less, is part of the experience of anyone who attends one of Trimukhi Platform‘s “Nights of Theatre” – a night-long celebration of the human spirit through performance and laughter and joyous conviviality that leads to thinking (and thinking through) some aspects of life and living that one does not often encounter in a performance. It happens every winter, around Pous Sankranti, and this year it is scheduled to take place on January 27, 2018.

The three facets of Trimukhi Platform‘s work invoke “artistic creation, thought generation and social action” – a triumvirate that Jean-Frédéric Chevallier, Trimukhi’s artistic director, stresses must not be separated, but seen as three sides of an integrated whole. Chevallier, a Frenchman who has lived in India for the past decade (and is married to a Bengali), is a trained philosopher, with a doctoral degree from the Sorbonne, Paris, and a decade’s experience as a university teacher, first at the Université de la Sorbonne Nouvelle in Paris and then for seven years at the National University of Mexico. He turned his back on the safety of his cushy job in Mexico to come and work in a place that does not even register as peripheral to us city-folk.

When introduced to Jean-Frédéric nearly a decade ago by Ananda Lal, professor of English at Jadavpur University, a man who has forgotten more about theatre than I will ever know, I was immediately suspicious – what was this White man with the aristocratic surname (chevalier = knight, in French), and a doctorate from Paris, doing in some back-of-beyond tribal village in distant Jhargram? Was he some kind of neo-Orientalist evangelist, who had come to our backwater to ‘civilize the savage’? Was he out to stake claim to uncharted (for Western academics) territory in hope of future fame? Talking to the polite and graceful young(ish) man allayed my suspicions somewhat. It seemed all he wanted was to know if he could put up a performance at Jadavpur University which seemed innocent enough. But when I began to ask him what his requirements were, my suspicions were aroused again. What kind of auditorium did his team need? No need for an auditorium, said Chevallier. What about lights, sound, and so on? Nothing. Nothing at all. What kind of theatre was this, I wondered? Could it be called theatre at all?

What we saw on January 24, 2009, was an astonishing performance that took place in the ground-floor corridors of the UG Arts Building of Jadavpur University, with hand-held torches doing the illuminating, unamplified human voices speaking (or singing), and a marvellously evocative poetic presentation that was unlike anything I had seen before. I still have the note Jean-Frédéric sent me before that performance, nine years ago: “Why not think about theatre as an act of presentation that brings into play movement, energy? Then, attention is drawn to the relationship created between the stage space and the spectator space. What comes out of this in-between space – what is produced by the creation of an in-between space – can be viewed as symbolic, not in the common sense of the expression (‘this symbolizes that’) but rather in its etymological sense: ‘this (the symbol) relates that (the actor) with that (the spectator)’.”

It was this that prompted Jean-Frédéric to suggest to fifteen people from Borotalpada that they collectively produce an experimental stage work, which finally took form and shape as Monsoon Night Dream. It had no characters, no story to speak of, no conflict, merely an invitation to contemplate, in a simple, direct fashion, the presence of seven women, three men and four musicians who, sometimes, performed quotidian actions from their daily lives, sometimes parts of dances, or sometimes just stood there, looking straight at the audience. Intriguingly, this very non-dramatic-ness created its own narrative/s, with each member of the audience taking away from the performance his/her own personalized story. In the process, Trimukhi Platform not only successfully built a bridge between two very different sets of cultures and peoples but it also became a means to enjoy, celebrate and partake of the diversity of our part of the world.In the nine years since then, Trimukhi’s performances have often been followed by sessions of intense sharing of thoughts, ideas, opinions, from members of the audience and between them and the performers. More remarkably, their productions are no longer the brain children of Jean-Frédéric or Sukla; several pieces have been created by members of Trimukhi Platform, with or without inputs from their director, making their works truly collaborative creations.

Naturally, this has piqued interest from others working within (both ‘with’ and ‘in’) diverse performative traditions and forms – the Nights of Theatre have seen contributions from across the globe, with dancers, musicians, sound-artists, philosophers and theatre practitioners spending time at Borotalpada with members of Trimukhi Platform, and their extended village ‘family’, to create innovative forms of expression. Nights of Theatre are now followed soon after by Nights of Ideas, both possessing a certain graceful, non-confrontational charm that made the French philosopher, Patrice Maniglier, ask, after last year’s Night of Theatre, “I wondered: is this theatre… in the sense I understand it when I’m in Paris? Is not Trimukhi Platform a very subtle machine aimed at producing misunderstandings? Misunderstandings in the sense that of course we can all share this experience in its beauty and power. But the place for that experience in our world is not the same. This is not simply a show; it is life continued. And the way it is played confirmed this intuition. Performers don’t try to play at being anyone else; they are exactly what they give us to see. They are young Santhali villagers and true contemporary artists. They belong to (at least) two worlds at the same time, two worlds that precisely communicate at the moment of this performance. In the very confusion in which we all find ourselves at this moment, a common place is cleared. This common place is not the end of everything. It is only the beginning. Starting from this experience, the very question of our differences can now be raised.”

It is time now perhaps for those closer to Jhargram to subject Trimukhi Platform’s work to similar critical scrutiny.

 

The author is professor of Comparative Literature, Jadavpur University, and has been working as a volunteer for a rural development NGO for the last 30 years.