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Per Ruptam Silvam is the fruit of two weeks rehearsal process in the tribal village of Borotalpada, West Bengal, India, with a dancer from Bogotá, a peasant from a nearby village, two young schoolgirls living in Borotalpada, a Bengali social worker, a French director living in Kolkata (Jean-Frédéric Chevallier) and an anthropologist from Paris. Five village youth and a young man from the city of Kolkata were ensuring the lighting, soundscapes and video projections.The journalist Mohua Das wrote about it: “After the long journey our sense of disorientation was pushed to the limit with the experimental theatre but it was great. The way they used the existing nightscape of the village with a couple of lights and props as the stage was amazingly innovative. And there was a constant effort to tickle the senses…. There was something magical about making one’s way through the backwoods with torchlights and settling down on the ground under the open skies, feeling the caress of a wintry breeze and watching performances in the dark — imaginative and untamed. Our sense of disorientation was pushed to the limit: there was a constant effort to tickle the senses…”
After the long journey our sense of disorientation was pushed to the limit with the experimental theatre but it was great. The way they used the existing nightscape of the village with a couple of lights and props as the stage was amazingly innovative. And there was a constant effort to tickle the senses…. There was something magical about making one’s way through the backwoods with torchlights and settling down on the ground under the open skies, feeling the caress of a wintry breeze and watching performances in the dark — imaginative and untamed.
Mohua Das, “Experiments with Theatre and Truth”, The Telegraph, March 9, 2014
To qualify this performing arts work, one could speak of a “theatre of presenting”: a stage that presents. Like dishes are presented on a plate and guests are invited to savour. What is given to taste are presences, singular and unusual, crossed, entangled with each other, their relationship, their differences. It’s all about a scenic exercise that, like any culinary combination, means nothing — unless perhaps this: “be welcomed and do smell, do taste, do let yourself go”. What matters is that by looking at the very thing that does not mean anything, the spectators are saying things to themselves, even unusual and new things. For example, among a thousand, the sentence heard at the very beginning: “when you wanted me, did you held a little restraint?” Or this one, pronounced shortly before the end : “Where do you think Heaven is?”.
Extracts form the program distributed to the audience
PER RUPTAM SILVAM theatre of presenting
written and directed by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier in collaboration with Sandra Gómez produced by Sukla Bar Chevallier for Trimukhi Platform performance supported by CONACULTA-FONCA (Mexico) performers Sukla Bar Chevallier, Sandra Gómez, Marc Hatzfeld, Raima Mondal, Chandrai Murmu, Pini Soren and Joba Hansda video projections by Jean-Frédéric Chevallier actresses in video Shreya Mallick and Raima Mondal sound and music design by Rogelio Sosa and Andrés Solís lighting set-up by Chandrai Murmu lighting by Sunny Prosun Bor, Dhananjoy Hansda, Bhimcharon Hansda and Salkhan Hansda technical assistants Himadri Mondal and Arnab Banerjee video registration of the rehearsals and the shows Jean-Frédéric Chevallier
première on February 15, 2014 at Trimukhi Cultural Centre during Night of Theatre n°7
in the press
Read the story in The Telegraph →