A Transformative Journey: Making A Tempest in Postcolonial India

Extract

This article is based on the author's production of Aimé Césaire's A Tempest in India. Guided by the concept of transculturation, a key concern of Kamaluddin Nilu in the working process was to develop positions that could be considered parallel to those of Césaire. The topographical condition of present-day India is interpreted as ‘internal colonialism’, locked in differences within, and presented through a double-framed vision. The parallel to ‘black subjectivity’ was found to be the Dalits, who suffer from systematic discrimination and are segregated from the main social body. Further, when adjusting the text to ‘India's world’, the notion of a ‘third space’, benefiting from the performance matrix of the traditional ritualistic performance Ram Lila as well as a heterotopian space concept, was crucial. The intention to make a theatre production that could give the audience an opportunity to engage in a political debate on the hierarchical nature of Indian society was fulfilled. Breaking the established postcolonial political myth meant that the audience was faced with the unexpected. In such cases an indirect or parabolic performance mode of communication rather than a synergetic one becomes likely. Kamaluddin Nilu is an independent theatre director and researcher affiliated with the Centre for Ibsen Studies, University of Oslo. He is currently a Research Fellow at the International Research Centre ‘Interweaving Performance Cultures’ at the Freie University, Berlin. He was Chair Professor of the Theatre Department at Hyderabad University in India, and Artistic Director of the Centre for Asian Theatre (CAT) in Dhaka.