British Asian Theatre: From Past to Present

British Asian Theatre:
from Past to Present
A major international conference at the University of Exeter
10-13 April 2008
University of Exeter,
Department of Drama
(Roborough Studios and the
Alexander Building)
© Suresh Vedak
Incorporating: Celebrating British Asian Live Arts
Independent Stories
Am I In Tune?
An exhibition commissioned by Asian Arts Agency
to commemorate 60 years of India and Pakistan’s
Independence.
New performance commission with poet Shamshad
Khan and musician Kuljit Bhamra.
Thursday 10 – Sunday 13 April, SR1, Alexander Building,
Drama Department, University of Exeter.
Live Asian Music
Friday 11 April, 8.00-10.00pm, Phoenix Centre,
Gandy Street, Exeter.
Mr. Quiver
4 hour durational performance by Rajni Shah Theatre.
Experience ghazals, bhajans and live Asian music with
local artists Tim Jones, Ricky Romain and Jon Sterckx
(formerly of ‘Dhani’); and Pooja Angra and Bradford
musicians Najam Javed and Shabaz Hussain.
In the final performance of this highly acclaimed production,
live artist Rajni Shah metamorphoses between Queen
Elizabeth I and an Indian bride to bring to life the tensions
and politics of colonialism and the complexity of identity.
Thursday 10 April, 7.30-9.00pm, Roborough Studios,
Drama Department, University of Exeter.
Saturday 12 April, 10.30am, TS3, Alexander Building,
Drama Department, University of Exeter.
"British Asian Theatre: From Past to Present"
10-13 April 2008
University of Exeter Department of Drama
Conference Abstracts
Naseem Khan, author of The Arts Britain Ignores
Paradise Lost, Paradise Regained…? British Asian Theatre over 30 years
When Madhur Jaffrey emerged from drama school in London in the 1950s, she discovered that hardly
any work was offered to her. So she turned to a second string in order to earn a living. She was not
alone. Quite a number of actors from the ex-Colonies found that Britain might train them but it would
not employ them. Sixty years on and a new century has just taken us into the official Year of Intercultural
Dialogue, with all its assumptions of busy cultural conversations. Who are the voices, and is there indeed
a conversation?
Naseem Khan wrote ‘the Arts Britain Ignores’ in 1976, the report that is widely seen as opening the doors
to discussions around British identity and cultural diversity. She was Theatre Editor of Time Out and
‘fringe theatre’ columnist for the Evening Standard, coordinator of the alternative Festival of India in
1985 and more recently Head of Diversity at Arts Council England.
Jamila Massey
Jamila Massey is Britain’s longest-serving Asian actress whose distinguished career in the UK stretches
over 50 years.
Her theatre credits include: Chaos, and Calcutta Kosher (Kali Theatre/Theatre Royal Stratford East);
Women of the Dust (Tamasha Theatre/ Bristol Old Vic); The Life & Times of Mr. Patel (Leicester
Haymarket); Song for a Sanctuary (Kali Theatre/Lyric Hammersmith); The Great Celestial Cow (Royal
Court); Conduct Unbecoming (Canadian and UK tour); Moti Roti Puttli Chunni (Theatre Royal Stratford
East/International Tour); To Anchor a Cloud (Navakala).
Her television credits include: Coronation Street, Chucklevision, All About Me, Doctors, Eastenders, The
Cappuccino Years, Casaulty, Arabian Nights, Perfect World, Family Pride, Albion Market, Langley Bottom,
Churchill’s People, Pie in the Sky, The Jewel in the Crown and Mind Your Language.
Her film credits include: Madame Sousatzka, Chicken Tikka Masala, King of Bollywood, Wild West and
Sink the Bismarck.
Jamila’s radio career is extensive. She has over 250 credits with the BBC, including regular roles as Auntie
Satya in The Archers and Poornima in Westway, in addition to a wide range of radio dramas.
She has co-written three books on classical Indian music and dance, and a novel with her husband
Reginald Massey.
She was the recipient of the Nazia Hassan Foundation Lifetime Achievement Award and in 2005 received
a Lifetime Achievement Award for Services to the Performing Arts at the Houses of Commons. In 2008
she was Artist-in-Residence at the Wolfsberg think tank, Switzerland.
Running throughout the conference (10 - 13 April)
Independence Stories Exhibition, SR1
A new exhibition ‘Independence Stories’, commissioned by Asian Arts Agency to commemorate 60
years of India and Pakistan’s Independence
The exhibition seeks to identify the personal “Independence” stories of Bristol based people from South
Asian backgrounds and is a collection of digital short stories that reveal recollections of life in India and
Pakistan, and the legacies of partition.
The stories based on India’s partition, reflects vivid memories of chaos, migration of life, conflict of war,
separation, reunion, and the enormous trauma millions of people went through as a result of the
partition. The original stories are provided by Bristol based Harinder Singh, Amir Ahmed, Gurdial Kaur,
Bhupi Bowri, Kanta Nandwani and Tajinder Dhami.
Bristol based visual artist Tajinder Dhami has worked with Aikaterini Gegisian from Watershed to
transform the stories into digital artwork that will be in the form of voice-overs, interviews, still and
moving images, drawings and sketches, animation and archives.
Independence Stories is produced by Asian Arts Agency in partnership with Watershed, Bristol Stories,
Asian Day Centre and The British Empire & Commonwealth Museum, and is supported by Awards for all
and Quartet Community Foundation.
Asian Arts Agency is an Arts development agency based in Bristol, working to promote and produce
South Asian arts within South West of England through performances, workshops, film screenings, and
ongoing support to artists.
Reginald Massey
Reginald Massey is a journalist, poet, broadcaster, writer of fiction and non-fiction, film-maker, critic and
academic. In 2006 he was Visiting Professor of English at Himachal Pradesh University, Shimla, and in
2008 was Writer-in-Residence at the Wolfsberg think tank, Switzerland. His many publications include:
India: Definitions and Clarifications (Hansib, 2007); The Music of India with Jamila Massey (Kahn &
Averill, 2006); India’s Kathak Dance: Past, Present, Future (Abhinav and Khan & Averill, 2004); Asian
Dance in Britain (University of Surrey, 1996); The Dances of India with Jamila Massey (Tricolour Books,
1988); and Indian Dances (Faber & Faber, 1967). His poetry appears in two collections The Splintered
Mirror and Lament of the Lost Hero and Other Poems, in addition to other anthologies. His novel The
Immigrants was written with Jamila Massey. In 1977 he wrote, directed and produced the film
Bangladesh I Love You, under the banner of his film company Seven Stars Films Ltd. He is former editor
of Asian Post International, and An Indian Booksworm’s Journal (both London) and continues to work as
a critic to Dancing Times and a number of national newspapers.
Jade Yeow, De Montfort University
Choreography, British Asian identity and Post-colonialism
This paper demonstrates that using information and methodologies from cultural theory and policy,
postcolonial theory and dance studies reveals and illuminates the issues and meanings in the
choreography and performances of British Asian artists. I consider post-colonialism and its effects on
particular artists and on the formation of their identities. I consider the choices that British Asian artists
have in relation to cultural policy and the dialogue they initiate in a multicultural and globalized context.
Many have argued that these concepts are positive and in need of protection and backing. If this is the
case, it is necessary to negotiate a future that does not perpetuate colonial history and white
subordination of non-western people, their culture and art forms.
Dance plays a role in articulating perceptions, including self-perceptions of cultural identity. Changing
definitions of ‘home’ affect the content and even the form of dance and its point of reference, with
changes determined by challenges in a new and constantly self-redefining social context and new
audiences’ expectations. For artists who now see Britain as their ‘home’, they become entangled in
political questions and debates over multiculturalism and ’Britishness’, and therefore need to consider
the objectives set by funders. The choreographic and performance work that is produced, therefore,
reveals the dynamism and inconsistencies of living in Britain.
While dance artists and choreographers may try to use labels, contexts and funds to make ‘serious’ art
that questions and subverts, the framework in which they operate will signify a pre-determined meaning
and value. Cultural policy inherently reflects and perpetuates views about the past, embodied in terms
such as ’heritage’, ’tradition’ and ’mainstream’, whilst laying foundations for the future. It is my
contention that whilst dance artists such as Akram Khan, Shobhana Jeyasingh and Mavin Khoo are trying
to dodge categorisation and maintain artistic integrity, they create their ’own ethnicity’ that reflects the
lived experience of the world; they offer up their own experiences as a person living in diaspora, in which
the audience is invited to share.
Ann David, Roehampton University
Performing for the gods? Dance and embodied ritual in British Hindu temples.
This paper investigates current embodied practice of worship in British Hindu temples and seeks to
discover how dance, ritual and ‘possession’ forms are being utilised in a resurgence of ‘performed’
religious expression. Using ethnographic evidence from London Saivite temples, it questions firstly the
classical dance form of Bharatanatyam, outlawed from the temples in India, but now enjoying a revised,
respectable appearance in these public spaces, not on professional stages but in the ‘sacred’ spaces of
the temple. For many Tamil Hindus in a diasporic community setting, Bharatanatyam has become
essentially a Tamil cultural and religious identity marker, offering middle-class respectability, and a highly
valued femininity. Are these spectacles of specific ‘faith’ confirming a uniquely Tamil identity, or are
such contemporary practices an ironic reversal to the times of the devadasis (original temple dancers)?
What are the political implications of these resurgent religious sensibilities and do they support a
‘globalized localism’ (Waghorne 2004), where local, once-rural practices are being exported throughout
the Tamil diaspora?
Secondly, there is evidence of increased performance of ritual ‘trance’ or possession dancing at specific
religious festivals. The benign ecstatic trance dancing of Tamil devotees at the Tai Pusam festival is a
potent signifier of Tamil devotion, a performance of faith in the deity Murugan expressed in the
movements and gestures of their dance. It becomes too, as does the dancing form of Bharatanatyam,
both a local and national identity marker, appearing in a globalised and localised diasporic location.
These danced forms, along with ritual actions of the priests in the temple setting provide too, a rich
setting for analysis of performed faith.
Lorna Sanders, School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London
Akram Khan: physical theatre, heritage and hybrid practice in the present.
Akram Khan is feted for his creation of Contemporary Kathak, a hybrid of genres usually viewed as having
contradictory identities (modern/classical, western/eastern for example). His choreography, initially
abstract in character, has become increasingly narrative. It could be assumed that Kathak influences are
reasserted but Khan’s story-telling has multiple wellsprings which are brought to bear in cross
disciplinary collaborations with artists from diverse cultural contexts. Spoken text and text-based
improvisatory processes, grounded in autobiography, inject new ingredients into his work. The type of
physical theatre Khan produces (lower case avoids simplistic identification with that area of postmodern
dance termed Physical Theatre) re-contextualises heritage for global audiences. Khan states that “where
the boundaries are broken down, languages of origin are left behind and instead individual experiences
are pushed forward”. Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (1994), suggests that hybridity does not
replace the polarities of cultural difference with an alternative, unproblematic, pluralist concept. He
proposes that post colonial hybridity is not a simple accretion which resolves tensions. Instead of being
one and the other combined, hybridity is ‘neither ‘one’ nor other’ (Bhabha p.127). I argue that
Contemporary Kathak is neither one genre nor the other but that both exist simultaneously, interacting
in a non-totalising form which embraces ambiguity. Khan’s work challenges easy notions of hybridity and
resists definition. It illustrates how Khan’s self-presentation unsettles Western formalist aesthetics. This
paper discusses how these issues are materialised within ma (2004) and exposes the challenges that
Khan’s work throws down for current analytical frameworks.
Shreeyash Palshikar, Magician and Academic
Fake fakirs: playing Asian for fun and profit
For over 200 years, non-Asians have been dressing up and playing Asians in a variety of situations. This
paper will analyse the phenomenon of non-Asians who dress up as Asians to perform magic focusing on
British magician Ali Bongo and American magician Alan Eisenson. Ali Bongo is a celebrated British
television magician who plays a comic Indian magician character in his act. Alan Eisenson has won great
acclaim in the magic world with an Indian style act featuring the Sands of India routine. The characters
and performances of these influential performers will be analysed to understand the images of Asians
they present and the ways these effect perceptions of Asia and Asians. The performers will be
interviewed to learn how they selected their characters, costumes, and ‘Indian’ performing styles, how
they view and understand their choice to play Asian magicians.
Claire Pamment, National College of Arts, Pakistan
Police of Pig and Sheep: Representations of the White Sahib and the Psyche of Theatre Censorship.
From benevolent missionaries, swindlers, rapists, lusty princes, monkeys, pigs and sheep - the dramas
that triggered the British imposed 1876 Dramatic Performance Act in India reveal a playful yet critical
indictment of the British colonial character. This paper examines the relationship of stage
representations of the white sahib in the construction of theatre censorship, through plays: Dinabandhu
Mitra’s Nil Darpan (Indigo Mirror, 1860), Dakshina Charan Chattopadhyay’s Chakar Darpan (Tea Planters’
Mirror, 1875), Upendra Nath Das’s Surendra-Binodini (1875), Upendra Nath Das’s Gajadananda and the
Prince (1876) and the anonymously written Police of Pig and Sheep (1876). (Unless otherwise stated, all
performances by the Great National Theatre, Calcutta). In this discussion I hope to illustrate how the
British displaced its own negative representations on stage, by re-appropriating the Indian character off
stage: whereby what was political, became “obscene”, theatrical Police of Pig and Sheep were relegated
to unconscious “cops in the head” and a theatre of resistance was forced into following plays of a
mythological-religious bent, probing “self’ rather than the “other”. I will finally explore how such
representations of the white sahib replicate themselves in contemporary British Asian theatre, and
question what narrative this reveals about the dynamics of control.
Sreenath Nair, University of Lincoln
Restoration of Breath: Neutrality and Actor’s Consciousness
Considering breath as a category of meaning and consciousness is an emerging area of interest and
enquiry in Western philosophical thinking aiming to identify ‘Air’ as the place of the birth of the
phenomenon of Being experienced through language, visibility, appearance, human actions and voice.
Aristotle dedicated a volume to breath exploring and enquiring in to its presocratic roots. For Heidegger,
breath is “the temporal extension”of Being. Artaud’s theatricality is rooted in the actor’s breathing.
Derrida investigates ‘Air’ as the source of the linguistic temporality of ever present textual meanings.
Irigaray goes beyond this linguistic split onto the level of “the origin of the autonomous existence”. In
contrast, the pragmatic and epistemological significance of breath as a consciousness-related category
has been systematically integrated in Indian philosophical thinking and performance traditions. In martial
arts breath has been used as a physical tool to explore, develop, and control the dormant energy level. In
spiritual traditions breath has been used as a transformational tool altering human consciousness from
daily to extra-daily. South Indian Siddha tradition, Kashmir Siva tradition and Kudiyattam, the only
existing version of Sanskrit theatre, offer some clear practical approaches to breath highly useful to
contemporary training and theatre practice.
The intention of this paper is to introduce and explain the concept of a practice related term, particularly
relevant to training and performance: the restoration of breath. The restoration of breath is a technique
and a breath related practice through which one can totally internalize the respiratory function in order
to explore physical and mental presence in training and performance. Breath is a material substance and
restoration of breath is a psycho-physical technique; drawing on relevant examples from some of the
workshop sessions, the paper will discuss how neutrality and pre-expressive energy levels can be
accessed through restoring actor’s breathing.
Keynote: Girish Karnad, playwright, India.
The inter-relationship between British and Indian Theatre, an historical perspective
Sanskrit drama flourished in India during the first seven centuries of the Christian era. Then Sanskrit lost
its hegemony and drama disappeared from India. For the next twelve hundred years India produced no
drama. There was of course vigorous theatrical activity, usually sponsored by a rich patron and made
accessible to the common people. But vernacular actors, usually from the ‘lower castes’ and often
uneducated, valued their ability to improvise dialogue and resolutely kept the written text at bay. By the
mid-nineteenth century, except for a few ritualistic forms, theatre in India had come to mean secular,
open-air performances which were improvised by professional castes and shunned by the educated elite.
It was the influence of the British that transformed this situation. Firstly, the colonial masters actively
sponsored theatrical performances within their enclosed social life, which raised the status of theatre in
the eyes of the ruled. Secondly, with the positing of Shakespeare as the true representative of British
civilization, playwriting gained a new respectability with the British Indian milieu of Calcutta, Bombay
and Madras. The new-found prestige for the written word on stage enabled the educated urban Indians
to see the profession as a continuation of their Sanskrit heritage. Finally, and somewhat paradoxically,
the fact that visiting British troupes practised theatre as a business activity, which had nothing to do
with religion and everything to do with making money, gave rise to a new concept of theatre, as a
commercial venture unshackled by traditional restrictions, open to any entrepreneur in a free-market
economy.
Theatre changed its ‘caste’ as the new bourgeoisie redefined ‘culture’ to appropriate the business of
entertainment. The playwright re-entered the scene, but as a partner in a financial venture, and pursued
a path that ultimately led to the Indian film rather than to a renaissance in Indian drama.
Girish Karnad is a playwright, film-maker and actor. He was born in 1938 and educated at the Karnataka
University, Dharwad (1954-58) and at Oxford University where he was a Rhodes Scholar (1960-63).
He has held positions with the Oxford University Press (1963-70), served as Director of Film and
Television Institute of India (1974,1975) and Chairman of the Sangeet Natak Akademi, the national
academy of the performing arts (1988-93). 1987-88, he was Visiting Professor-cum-Fulbright Scholar-inResidence at the University of Chicago and taught classical Indian drama and poetics. Most recently, he
served as Director, The Nehru Centre and simultaneously as Minister for Culture in the Indian High
Commission, London (2000-03).
His many plays include the following: Yayati (1961); Hayavadana (1971) awarded the Sangeet Natak
Akademi Award; Naga-Mandala (1988); Taledanda(1990); The Dreams of Tipu Sultan (1997); The Fire
and the Rain (1999); Bali the Sacrifice (2002, commissioned and premiered at the Leicester Haymarket
Theatre); and Two Monologues: Flowers / Broken Images (2004). Wedding Album is his most recent play.
He scripted and presented the film, The Bhagavad Gita, as part of the series, ‘Art that Shook the World’,
for BBC 2 in 2002. He has worked extensively in television and feature film (in Hindi and Kannada) as a
scriptwriter, actor and director, for which he has won several national and international awards and has
served as a member of the Jury for the International Film Festivals at New Delhi (1977) and Locarno
(2003).
He was awarded the Padma Shri in 1974 and the Padma Bhushan in 1992 by the President of India. In
1994 the Karnatak University conferred a D.Litt. on him and in 1999 he was awarded the Bharatiya
Jnanpith, the country’s highest literary prize. He has two children and lives in Bangalore with his wife.
Bobby Tiwana, Black Country Touring
The role of host theatres and venues in the development of British Asian theatre
Black Country Touring (BCT) programmes professional dance and theatre in community venues by
working in partnership with promoters across the Black Country (Dudley, Sandwell, Wolverhampton and
Walsall); and also develops professionally led community arts projects. reSonAte is a South Asian (SA)
programme. Its conception was a strategic decision, which responded to an opportunity to absorb a
small South Asian arts organisation in Sandwell. The programme is about making links with SA artists and
companies, developing SA promoters, developing SA projects and reaching new audiences. Much of the
programme is about engaging with SA communities and enabling them to become active agents in arts
production and arts promotion.
Over the past three-years we have created a diverse range of work. This presentation will focus on one
particular project, Apna Ghar (June 2006), a site-specific promenade theatre production, which was
inspired by stories collected from South Asian women from across the Black Country who participated in
the project. The show was warmly received by both South Asian audiences and wider audiences, who
were drawn to the richness of the stories and universal themes. By focussing on the model of Apna Ghar,
we will describe the ways in which BCT engages with SA communities to create new work for
performance, sharing our experience and most successful approaches.
Black Country Touring is led by two Co-artistic Directors Steve Johnstone and Frances Land. Bobby
Tiwana, who is of South Asian origin, leads on the reSonAte programme as Producer.
Aziz Zeria, Managing Director, Culturelinks Alliance
This paper will focus on the issue of 'Islam & the Arts', and the developments in this area since
Culturelinks Alliance organised a conference dedicated to this topic in 2004.
With twenty years experience in arts and community development Aziz Zeria has pioneered wideranging policies and programmes, specialising in Cultural Diversity, Disability arts, Social Inclusion and
Education, through work with Arts Council England, Local Governments and a wide range of community,
statutory and voluntary groups nationally. As Head of Diversity for Oldham Metropolitan Borough
Council from 1991 to 98 he was responsible for the foundation of Peshkar Theatre, which continues
today as Peshkar Productions.
Champak Kumar Limbachia, Director, Oriental Arts
My paper will focus on the work of Oriental Arts.
Oriental Arts is a Bradford-based company primarily concerned with the promotion and development of
South Asian Arts, including music, arts and drama. As Director, I have both knowledge and 30 years of
experience in developing Asian Arts, as well as the touring and production process involving a wide
network of artists.
In addition to providing a platform for promoting South Asian arts through organised events at
community, educational, national and international level, Oriental Arts organises public and community
events in partnership with Bradford Theatres, national Asian Promoters and community organisations in
venues such as St George’s hall (Bradford), Alhambra Dance studio (Bradford), Leeds Town Hall, and
Pudsey Civic Hall. The company also provides consultancy services to agencies and local authorities from
arranging research interviews to artistic programming for festivals and melas, identifying key
organisations involved in developing arts and theatre.
The company inspired and organised the first Bradford Mela in 1988 and has provided the event’s artistic
programming every year since. The event is now the biggest of its kind in Europe and attracts crowds of
over 130,000 over two days. We are now contracted by Bradford City Council, Kirklees Council and
Bolton Council to provide the following services for their melas:
Input into Artistic programming for the different stages and zones
First stage approaches and negotiations with artists and artists agents
Artist liaison and stage management during the mela event
Oriental Arts aspires to create opportunities for building cultural bridges and enhancing community
cohesion to result in a strong socially-unified and harmonious society.
Hardial Rai, Zeroculture
In this paper I will discuss my approach to developing new work in an industry which is clearly geared
towards two different markets and scales of production: the expectation of the mainstream and Asian
audience consumption.
I have been creating new work in theatre, dance, music, cross-form and other media since 1981, which
to date has resulted in over 70 productions of all scales. I co-founded the Hounslow Arts Cooperative
theatre in 1981, which continued as a company until 2000 and for which I conceived and co-created the
first British Asian comedy show One Nation Under a Groove..innit in 1984. I was the first building-based
Asian arts programmer/producer at Watermans (1992-2001) and am currently working in film and
continuing to create new performance based work for zeroculture - www.zeroculture.co.uk
Rajni Shah, Live Artist
Internal geographies: negotiating space in performance installation
Drawing on examples from my durational performance installations Mr Quiver and Dinner with America,
I will explore the ways in which internal and external history-geographies collide when an audience
enters a space loaded with cultural references. What are the spaces in which transformation takes place
when an audience can negotiate their own journey through a theatrical environment? How might this
way of presenting open up new spaces for dialogue and extend the transformative potential of the
work?
Qasim Riza Shaheen
Khusra: Stains & Stencils
At times I simply don’t know what I do, so editing thoughts into a succinct abstract poses a challenge.
I’ve also been living and working in Pakistan as an expatriate of late and that repositions me and my live
art practice yet again. I would like to repose a few questions in my presentation - which is less of a paper
and more of a polemical natter - and show excerpts from my most recent body of work Khusra: Stains &
Stencils. I am associate artist at the greenroom in Manchester, resident artist at the National College of
Arts in Lahore and am the founder & artistic director of Anokha Laadla, a live art company based
wherever I am at any given time.
Sarah Sayeed, producer, musician, live performer
The Identities of Performance and Production – Live Theatre and Digital Mediums
I am a musician and live performer who is working across theatre and commercial music.
This paper aims to look at the interaction between live performance, production and digital viewing. At
the hub of new theatre is contemporary, music-related performance which comprises the use of spoken
word, instruments and digital media. Digital formats are also allowing theatre, music and performance to
be viewed and listened to more widely. Independent artists and practitioners are exploring both public
and commercial sectors in their work, enabling wider creativity and survival. I will explore some of the
aspirations and processes of the growing independent actor or artist who is no longer so confined to the
traditional agent-director relationship. This is particularly relevant to an untrained actor such as myself,
who has developed through music and spoken word avenues in traditional theatre settings, rather than
through a traditional actor-agent route. I will discuss the shifts between working on commercial music
collaborations and projects, to my work as a theatre performance artist. What brings together my
performance and production? What unifies my work in commercial music with my creation as a theatre
practitioner? The identities of performance and production are brought together by the power of music
and the spoken word. ‘Live’ is something we can all experience, and the spaces in which it can be
expressed have no spatial boundaries.
Special Discussion/Performance of Asian Magic
Asian magician and scholar Shreeyash Palshikar offers a special performance of Asian magic. Palshikar
will present some Indian magical routines in their original form. He will present fusion versions of other
routines that combine elements of both Asian and Western performance styles. These question the
definitions of Indian or Western magic and highlight the movement of magical performance styles
between Asia and the West.
Rani Moorthy, Artistic Director, Rasa Theatre
Approaches to scripting...interrogating the personal and global
I hope to take a brief exploration of my work with RASA and locate the ways in which my personal
observations have enabled me to create work that resonates universally, a claim that I will support with
the few forays into national and international work I have undertaken. It is my belief that extending and
deepening the parameters of British Asian Theatre will secure its future.
Rani Moorthy is an actor, writer and artistic director of RASA. Apart from extensive national and
international touring of her stage work, she has written for BBC1's Doctors, BBC radio plays and three
short films. Her plays Curry Tales and Too Close to Home have been nominated for Manchester Evening
News Awards.
Parv Bancil, playwright
I will begin by talking about my reasons for joining Hounslow Arts Cooperative, my background with
regards to theatre and my personal background: expelled from school at 15, I did not get to sit exams –
why did I become a writer? HAC was a reaction against the stereotypes and alienation that as young
Asians we felt at that time, and HAC's search for a like-minded writer led to my beginning to write a
sequence of plays: Curse of the Dead Dog (1986) to Kings (1989). I will talk about what the plays meant
to us, why I wrote them, and what we were trying to say. I shall also talk about the lack of dramaturgical
skills available to us, and how we could have benefited from experienced writers but had no contacts. I
shall discuss commissions for the BBC in a brief period between 1991/93, and then move on to the
Waterman’s period 1993-2000. How a group set up camp at a touring venue against the wishes of the
administrative staff, and spent time devising and performing comedy. I shall then talk about my plays
from Ungrateful Dead (1993/95) to Bollywood or Bust (1998/99). On an attachment at the Royal Court in
1996 I started connecting with dramaturges and my writing began to take better shape. I shall end with a
‘back to theatre’ from a period away, with Find Me Amongst the Black, my new plays and my Soho
attachment. Institutions and mentors can immensely enhance the quality of the writing, but can also
‘knock the teeth’ out of some work. That leaves the question: are Asian-led theatre companies more
likely to understand the undertones of certain plays than white-led institutions?’
Parv Bancil is a playwright who started writing with HAC in the mid-1980s, continued at Watermans in
the 1990s, has received commissions from the BBC, and worked with Paines Plough, the Royal Court and
Soho Theatre.
Hardish Virk, Marketing & Audience Development Consultant
Hardish Virk has worked as a Marketing and Audience Development Consultant for over fifteen years in
the arts. This has included work with visual arts, dance, festivals, music and theatre. His audience
development work in theatre has included the Birmingham Repertory Theatre production of The
Ramayana; Andrew Lloyd Webber production of Bombay Dreams; Tara Arts production of Journey to the
West; Rifco Art’s productions of Bollywood - Yet Another Love Story, The Deranged Marriage, Meri
Christmas and There’s Something About Simmy; Young Vic production of Hobson’s Choice; National
Theatre production of Rafta, Rafta…; Kali Theatre Company production of Zameen and Tamasha Theatre
Company production of Strictly Dandia at the 2003 Edinburgh International Festival.
Hardish has also worked as an Audience Development Consultant with Arts Council England on projects
such as the South Asian Touring Theatre Consortium and Sustained Theatre.
Hardish continues to share his practises of developing new audiences and the impact of this work on
policy at seminars, training workshops and as a Consultant in the UK and Europe.
Claire Cochrane, Worcester University
British Asian communities in Birmingham and the experience of theatre
By 2011 it has been predicted that Birmingham will become Britain’s first multicultural city with 50% of
the population non-white. The majority of these will be of Asian origin, which in itself represents a
significant demographic shift from the post-war period when Black Caribbean migrants predominated.
My paper will discuss how Birmingham’s diverse Asian communities have experienced theatre in the city
over the past thirty years. To what extent have they been able to access professional theatre either as
artists or audience? How far have they felt alienated or excluded and what attempts have been made to
develop strategies of inclusion and participation? Is there an Asian experience of theatre ‘hidden’ within
communities which preserves concepts of cultural identity and is consciously separate from ‘white’
western theatre? In a cultural environment where intercultural relationships become the norm and
second and third generation families feel themselves to be unequivocally ‘British’ rather than ‘Asian’,
what factors have contributed to a theatre of cultural fusion?
Alan Tweedie, Director, Melange
The Scottish arts scene: a culturally diverse landscape?
For 25 years I have been involved in the development of the arts and cultural sector in Scotland. During
this time I have been engaged in a range of activity including youth work, community development, and
theatre and the arts, but with a particular interest in intercultural and international work. Having been
Chief Executive of the Edinburgh Mela until 2004, my subsequent international and intercultural work
included the post of Development Manager for the European Mela Network.
Drawing on my experiences as an Edinburgh City Councillor, a member of the Council of the Edinburgh
International Festival, a board member of the Royal Lyceum Theatre and my other roles during this
period, my paper will give an insider’s view of the evolution of the Scottish arts scene and its attitude to
cultural diversity. Throughout my Scottish arts experience I have challenged what I considered to be
‘institutional racism’ within the system and have therefore been a frequent critic of Scottish practice as
set against perceived examples of good Arts Council practice in England. My paper will also highlight the
challenges I faced in my attempt to encourage the creation of mela as ‘promenade theatre’ in which a
rare platform might be created for South Asian innovation in Scotland.
Faroque Khan, Director, Theatre Insaan
Insaan-the challenges of cultural diversity
Formed in 2004, Insaan began life as Theatre Insaan, a Glasgow-based company supported by the
Scottish Arts Council mainstreaming initiative and the City Council’s cultural diversity remit, both seeking
to place minority ethnic arts within the mainstream of Scottish arts culture.
This significant drive to acknowledge the presence of minority ethnics arts beyond the usual platform of
so called ‘community arts’, professional or other, was a key factor in the development of a ‘rock the
boat’ philosophy challenging safe havens both in bureaucracy and community.
However, positive as the move was, in my experience, approaching or tackling cultural diversity and/or
multi-culturalism very rarely relates to a broad look at culture. More often it’s a case of a waving of the
identity flag, the need for preservation, colourful celebrations and a battle cry of chequered histories
leading up to modern-day trials and tribulations.
Nothing wrong with that but then don’t call it cultural diversity, call it culturally specific.
There is also the assumed perception and, dare I say, added responsibility that you have or should have a
vast understanding of and be very knowledgeable and literate about who you are, who your ancestors
were, where you come from and why the hell you’re here. Hmm. Tricky stuff.
When asked who I am and where I come from my truth is: I’m culturally diverse and span over three
continents, I’m still trying to work it all out.
Rahul Varma, Artistic Director, Teesri Duniya Theatre, Canada
Teesri Duniya: Cultural Diversity and Political Engagement
This paper will discuss the work of Montreal’s Teesri Duniya Theatre, a company dedicated to producing
socially and politically relevant theatre that supports a multicultural vision of society, and creating
theatrical styles based on the cultural experiences of visible minorities living in Canada. The paper will
begin with a brief overview of other Canadian companies working in similar forms, discuss the material
conditions (such as funding and company structure) that affect Teesri Duniya’s work, and focus on the
relationship of art and social action through representative example of images and text from several of
Teesri Duniya’s productions including: Counter Offense, Bhopal, MissOrient(ed) and A Leaf in the
Whirlwind.
In Canada, most culturally diverse theatres tend to lean towards representations of a single cultural
community. In contrast, while Teesri Duniya started as a South Asian company, it quickly emerged to
become a culturally inclusive company focusing on more intercultural approaches that examine the
intersections of multiple and diverse cultural perspectives within the larger Canadian context.
The company’s production process involves creating original theatre that draws on everyday cultural
experiences that are acquired “here” rather than portraying the “roots” of minority cultures. This
involves undertaking a deliberate detachment from the culture of origin while resisting cultural
homogenization. This in turn, facilitates a dialogic exchange that includes both an examination of critical
social issues and relationships with the dominant culture(s), and a questioning of cultural orthodoxy by
those within diverse cultural communities. The company also publishes a theatre quarterly called
alt.theatre.
Teesri Duniya consists of artists, academics, editors, publishers and administrators from different cultural
backgrounds, and receives funding from all levels of governments. Despite inequitable patronage in
comparison to Occidental arts, Teesri has emerged as a model company demonstrating through its
success that culturally diverse theatre may well depend on political engagement that focuses on relevant
minority issues, builds solidarity, and promotes dialogue within and across cultures.
Neilesh Bose, Tufts University, USA
Sharuk and Shylock in South Asian America: Shishir Kurup’s Merchant of Venice
Notable dramatic literature of South Asian America includes realist plays showcasing the life of first and
second generation immigrants, such as Asif Mandvi’s Sakina’s Restaurant, contemporary politics
between South Asia and the US, such as Anubhav Pal’s Chaos Theory and The President is Coming, or
racial and cultural conflicts in Rehana Mirza’s Barriers. Unlike other South Asian diasporic groups,
particularly in the United Kingdom, South Asian American playwrights have largely avoided European
classics, such as Greek or Elizabethan plays. Shishir Kurup’s Merchant of Venice functions as the first
American drama to adapt Shakespeare into the South Asian diasporic context of twenty-first century
Venice, CA. This paper discusses the ways in which Kurup’s creation of character and language inherits
from the Shakespearean original but represents the diversity of ideology and conflict within the South
Asian American community. Additional analysis will focus on Kurup’s divergence from Shakespeare in his
ending as well as his presentation of socio-cultural and racial difference. A final thematic will briefly
compare Kurup's adaptations with those occurring in the British South Asian context, notably Jatinder
Verma's 2001 A Ramayana Odyssey and his 1990 Tartuffe. Within Asian performance studies, Kurup’s
adaptation charts a new aesthetic voice of South Asian American diasporic engagements with classic
European theatre.
Chemp S. Biju, St. Thomas College, Kerala
Teesri Duniya Theatre Montreal and the transmission of the intercultural: cultural economy of South
Asian diaspora in Canada
The long twenty four years of Teesri Duniya theatre’s activity in Montreal has a unique history of
interrogating the formation and transmission of cultural identities in a diasporic context. The history of
formal performance practice of the modern South Asian Diaspora in Canada started in 1981 when Rahul
Verma and Rana Bose co-founded a theatre group in Montreal named ‘Teesri Duniya’. Rana Bose later
left Teesri Duniya to form ‘Le Groupe Cultural Montreal Serai’ in 1985. Other major South Asian theatre
groups in Canada are ‘Stree’ led by Sheila James and ‘Vancouver Sath’ by Sadhu Binning. The very names
of these groups are suggestive of their prime focuses and the major issues they are confronting with.
Teesri Duniya is third world, Serai signifies a place of rest or shelter, Sath means togetherness in Punjabi
and Stree is Woman. This paper attempts to bring to the focus the theatre activities of Teesri Duniya by
analysing a few of its major productions and to examine how Teesri’s theatre practice reflects the
complex socialscape with embedded hegemony and intricate marginalisation in an officially multicultural
society. Plays and productions such as Job Stealer, Isolated Incident, Counter Offence by Rahul Varma
are crucial in interrogating South Asian Diapsoric identities and challenging the evolution of a
homogenous intercultural idiom.
Apart from the apparent similarities between ‘Teesri Duniya’ and major theatre groups of South Asian
Diaspora in Britain, ‘Teesri’ has a distinct but complex history of theatre practice in Montreal. The
theatre techniques, training methods, themes, concerns and the process of developing the theatre
community adapted by Teesri Duniya differ significantly with its counterparts in other locations of South
Asian Diaspora. Since theatre is a collaborative, public activity which needs the energy of a large number
of people and a space to perform, and it depends on material resources networks and labour, its not
easy for ‘Teesri’ to engage social, ethnic, gender, racial issues without corporate funding and by outliving
the neglect of the Government Agencies. The history and theatre practice of ‘Teesri Duniya’ is examined
in comparison with the theatre practices of theatres of South Asian Diaspora in Britain in the proposed
paper.
Tajinder Hayer, Peshkar Productions
Dance Without Movement
The paper will begin by introducing Peshkar Productions, giving a brief outline of our company ethos and
structure.
The overall aim of the paper is to use our experiences as an Oldham-based theatre company as a
springboard for discussing new British Asian theatre. We will consider the societal baggage that comes
with the simple act of presenting work – the cultural expectations within and outside Asian communities,
the issue of representation, and the lack of precedents etc.
Specifically, we will look at the different methods of engagement the company has adopted in its
approach to working with young people; from our experiences in schools-based settings to our more
open-access projects.
One of the fulcrums of our paper will be Dance Without Movement, a new writing piece by our female
Artist in Residence, Sophia Rashid. We will discuss the specific processes behind the creation of Dance
Without Movement; a year-long project which, by that stage, will have gone from community showcases
and theatre-in-education to a professional national tour.
Peshkar Productions will be represented at the conference by their Associate Writer, Tajinder Singh
Hayer (and possibly, dependent on timing, Jim Johnson – CEO of Peshkar – and Sophia Rashid – Artist in
Residence).
Kully Thiarai, Freelance Theatre Director and Director of Theatre Writing Partnership
Regional Perspectives:
In this paper I will reflect on the work I did in Bradford and Leeds (as a freelancer and as Artistic Director
of Red Ladder Theatre Company who toured nationally), my visioning and business planning work at
Contact Theatre (Manchester) for its re-opening following a major redevelopment through to my 5 plus
years at Leicester Haymarket. I will endeavour to consider what common themes emerge and what
regional differences do we as theatre makers need to be mindful of. At a time when the demographics of
this country are changing so dramatically what role should a regional theatre play in its community?
What are the key challenges for theatre makers/producers/presenters now and going forward?
Joint Artistic Director – Leicester Haymarket Theatre
With Paul Kerryson leads on all aspects of the artistic vision and programming for all creative activity on
and off stages. Kully is one of the architects of the original artistic vision and brief for a new theatre for
Leicester. A re-imagining of what a 21st century theatre organisation might be like both in its physical
environment and also in its ethos and practice - Kully has been actively involved in the development of
this new cultural and social enterprise that celebrates the creative spirit of the diverse communities of
Leicester and beyond.
Directing credits at Leicester include: Award winning international tour - The Bogus Woman (UK,
Adelaide, New York) Beautiful Thing, The Fortune Club – Tricycle Theatre/LHT, The Happy Prince,
Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys, Captured Live! (large scale site specific multi-media piece devised
with young people) West Side Story, Bollywood Jane.
Previous work includes:
Artistic Advisor for Contact Theatre, Manchester
Created new artistic vision, organisational structure, three-year business plan and re-launch programme
as part of Contact Theatre’s £5 million re-development.
Artistic Director and Chief Executive – Red Ladder Theatre Company
Writing-led National touring company producing new work for youth audiences who had little or no
access to the arts. Commissioned, produced and directed a diverse range of work nationally and
internationally including plays by Roy Williams, Lin Coghlan and Philip Osment. Set up a number of new
initiatives including The Asian Theatre School.
Madani Younis, Artistic Director, Freedom Studios
Freedom Studios
Madani’s paper will focus on the work of Yorkshire-based Freedom Studios, formerly Asian Theatre
School. Under his direction the ATS achieved independence as a stand-alone Regularly Funded
Organisation devising theatre company with the support of Arts Council England/Yorkshire under the
company’s new name. Madani will direct Happy & Married? Freedom Studios’ first devised national
touring production in autumn 2008.
Appointed in 2002 as the Director of the Red Ladder Theatre Company’s Asian Theatre School, Madani
successfully completed four productions: Streets of Rage (2002), a response to the Bradford riots of
2001; Silent Cry (2003-regional tour, 2004-national tour); Freeworld (2004), an international
collaboration with the Studio Theatre Damascus, Syria, which explored contemporary notions of terror
and terrorism; and Caravan (2005) West Yorkshire Playhouse. Other projects include: 2005, the scripting
of Free Falling (Red Ladder, national tour); 2005, A Waiting Room for Journeying Souls (directed by
Geraldine Conner, written by Madani Younis); 2007, Doors by Madani Younis (Red Ladder, national tour).
Madani Younis was South Bank Show Award Winner 2006; GG2 Award Winner 2006; is a Board Member
of Audiences Yorkshire; and is supporting the work of ACE YPPT International Conference planned for
July 2008. He has an MPhil in Playwriting, University of Birmingham, where he studied with April De
Angelis, David Edgar and Richard Pinner.
His short film debut ELLABELLAPUMPANELLA was screened at the Cannes Film Festival in May 2007 and
he is also working closely with television production companies in developing new work for screen.
Harmage Singh Kalirai (actor/director)
Harmage trained as an actor at the Rose Bruford College of Speech and Drama, London and Ecole
Jacques Lecoq in Paris. He directed for the theatre and worked as an actor for over 20 years and has
conducted numerous workshops and taught theatre skills in England, Germany, Norway and India.
Harmage was one of the founding members and for three years the Artistic Co-ordinator for the Asian
Co-operative Theatre (ACT). His Film Directing/Producing credits include:
The House of Sasha (Short Film, Mandora Productions); Parallel Lines (Short Film, Light House
Productions); Chicken Tikka Masala (Feature Film, Seven Spice Productions); Nominated for an award by
British Independent Film Awards and awarded Best Actress Award - OutTakes Fest Dallas. Endswell Film
& Video Productions (a series of Music Videos & info Video Dramas). Harmage also co-produced the
short film A Ship Aground directed by Kumar Shahani.
Poulomi Desai
Influenced by a punk do-it-yourself spirit, I am a self taught artist who seeks to explore the world
through participatory and collaborative working processes which evolve through research, learning and
action. Originally inspired by a street theatre background, my tools are performative, textual,
photographic and acoustic.
I have been involved in social politics and community development since a teenager, and co-founded,
amongst others, the experimental arts group HAC, fanzine - Token Black, spoof black metal band - The
Dead Jalebis, Shakti - the first LGBT group based in Europe; the Naz HIV/AIDS Charity, and more recently
Usurp, an experimental tactical media group.
I have exhibited internationally including at The Serpentine Gallery, London, The Queens Museum, New
York, The Oxford Gallery, Kolkatta, and The Photographers Gallery, London. My work has been published
in a variety of books and publications, including Different (published by Phaidon), Terrorist Assemblages
(Dukes University Press) Creative Camera, Dazed and Confused, British Journal of Photography, The
Guardian, and the New York Times.
My background directly influences my practice and affects the way I traverse boundaries, where I situate
my work, connecting directly with a range of people in communities that don't just serve as audiences.
My constant desire is to explore the hidden, the discrete and the unfashionable.
'Red Threads', my book, (pub.Millivres Press) and my current touring exhibition was an inspiration for a
72 panel poster project commissioned by Platform for Arts installed at North Harrow Metropolitan line
station London. Recent commissions have included a large scale 10 channel outdoor soundscape for
Myatts Fields, London, a book with compositions for Brighton Gallery and Museum, a video piece on
beauty freedom and desire for Sony PSP, a series of sound and visual installations for the V&A, The
Natural History Museum,The Science Museum, and compositions for Priceless, commissioned by Moti
Roti and the Serpentine Gallery.
Parminder Vir OBE, Non Executive Director, DCMS
Parminder Vir was born in the Punjab, India and came to England at the age of 10. She began her career
in arts administration, programming film festivals and arts programmes at the Commonwealth Institute
and as Head of Arts Department in the Greater London Council was responsible for funding and policy
development. Parminder is an award-winning film and television producer with 20 years of production
experience of drama, documentary, current affairs and entertainment, working for the BBC, ITV, Channel
Four, major international channels and her own independent production company, Formation Films.
Parminder worked as Business Development Consultant to the Managing Director MTV, Executive
Director ITV, Chief Executive Officer Royal Shakespeare Company, and as Business Ambassador for the
Creative Industries to the London Development Agency on how diversity can benefit business with
respect to talent, audiences and markets. She worked as Executive Producer and Diversity Advisor at
Carlton Television (May 1996-May 2004), reporting to the Chief Executive of Broadcasting and Director
of Programmes until Carlton merged with ITV. At Carlton Television, she produced and executiveproduced a number of programmes, including award-winning Single Voices, Melting Pot, Carlton’s
Multicultural Achievement Awards, Music of Black Origins Awards (MOBO) and Ethnic Minorities in the
Media Awards (EMMA). She served as a Board Director of the UK Film Council (1999-2005), responsible
for policy on diversity, co-production treaties, skills-training and specialised distribution. She was the Cofounder of the Cultural Diversity Network (CDN), an alliance of UK Broadcasters working towards greater
diversity in British Television, set up in 2000 and still active. In February 2006 she was appointed NonExecutive Director to the Board of Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) and has
contributed extensively to the production of the Department’s Diversity, International and the Creative
Economy Strategies. Parminder recently joined Spectrum Value Partners, UK’s leading media and
management consulting companies, to help develop their UK India consulting business. Prior to that she
was with Ingenious Media, UK’s leading media investment and advisory group, where she established a
World Cinema Fund, investing in cross-cultural films, capable of commercial and crossover appeal from
the emerging markets.
Parminder was awarded an OBE for her services to the Broadcasting and Film industry in the Queen’s
birthday honours list in June 2002, the Asian Women of Achievement Award for Media in May 2001, the
Media and Arts Award at the Asian Jewel Awards in July 2003 and the Windrush Diversity Award in 1999.
Anuradha Kapur, Director, National School of Drama, New Delhi
Anuradha Kapur is presently Director of the National School of Drama New Delhi. She has written widely
on the theatre and her book Actors, Pilgrims, Kings and Gods: the Ramlila at Ramnagar was published by
Seagull Books, Calcutta (1993, 2004). She has taught and directed in India and abroad and most of her
directorial work has been in collaboration with painters and visual artists; In 2003 she was invited to
curate the performance window actors at work at body.city, an event siting contemporary Indian culture
at the House of World Cultures, Berlin. Her theatre work has traveled widely; among other countries to
Germany, Japan, Brazil, UK, and Korea. She has had extensive involvement with Tara Arts in the UK,
providing workshops and directing major productions in 1985, 1989, and 1995.
Shelley King, Actor
Shelley is one of Britain’s leading Asian actresses with a distinguished career in television film, and
theatre. She has worked with many of the country’s leading theatres including prestigious roles with The
Royal Court Theatre; and several leading roles for The National Theatre. For over two decades she has
enjoyed a close collaboration with leading British Asian theatre and Asian TV drama including Tara Arts,
Asian Cooperative Theatre, Birmingham Rep and Kali Theatre. Shelley also regularly runs actor
workshops.
Theatre includes: Free Outgoing (Royal Court); Man of Mode (Royal National Theatre); Nathan the Wise
(Hampstead Theatre); Paper Thin; Asian Women Talk Back; and Chaos (Kali Theatre/ UK National Tours);
Behzti (Birmingham Rep); Calcutta Kosher (Kali); River on Fire (Kali); Hobson’s Choice (Young Vic);
Bombay Dreams (Original Cast, Really Useful Theatre Co, Apollo Victoria); Besharam (Soho Theatre/
Birmingham Rep); Macbeth (Theatre Unlimited); The Crutch (Royal Court); Orpheus, the Modern
Husband, Ion (Actors Touring Company); A Midsummer Night’s Dream, Dance Like A Man, Heer Ranjha,
Troilus and Cressida, Antigone, Danton’s Death (Tara Arts); Damon and Pythias (Shakespeare’s Globe
Theatre); Woman of Troy, Tartuffe, Little Clay Cart (Royal National Theatre); Top Girls (Royal Theatre,
Northampton); Death and the Maiden (Wolsey Theatre, Ipswich); Cloud 9 (Manchester Contact); The
Innocent Mistress (Derby Playhouse); Privates on Parade (Royal Lyceum, Edinburgh) and Orchids in the
Moonlight (Loose Change Theatre Company).
TV includes: Silent Witness (BBC); The Bill; Banglatown Banquet (BBC); The Magister (BBC); Tandoori
Nights – 2 Series (Channel 4). Angels – 2 Series (BBC); Real Women, A Secret Slave, King of the Ghetto,
Rockliffe’s Babies, South of the Border, Brookside, and Casualty.
Radio Credits include: Behind Closed Doors, The Eternal Bubble, Westway, The Ramayana, The Tutti Frutti
Holy Man, The Dreams of Tipu Sultan and numerous plays and short stories for BBC Radio 4 and the
World Service.
Public Performance - Exeter Phoenix: Am I in Tune?
Shamshad Khan and Kuljit Bhamra, Friday 11 April 2008
Start time 8pm, evening performance with one interval.
Am I in Tune?
Why are you here? Can you tune the universal instrument? In their first collaboration together musician
Kuljit Bhamra and poet and performer Shamshad Khan ask some serious and seemingly absurd questions
about life.
The answers they give may be surprisingly in tune with your inner violin.
The artists will also perform individual works.
Shamshad Khan returns to the Phoenix after her successful verse theatre show Meglamaniac. She struts
from the poetic to the political, from the satirical towards the spiritual.
Kuljit Bhamra is perhaps the most inspiring and influential musician, composer and record producer on
the British Asian music scene to date. Spearhead of the Bhangra movement, he has composed and
produced over 2000 songs, worked on a number of award-winning film scores, including Bhaji on the
Beach and Bend it Like Beckham, and gave a breath-taking performance in the massive West End hit
musical Bombay Dreams.
Alda Terracciano, Future Histories
The re-interpretation of European classics by Tara Arts
The paper explores Tara Arts “theatre of connections” by analysing a selection of European classics
produced by the company’s Artistic Director Jatinder Verma. In particular, the paper will focus on the
specific theatre vocabulary created by Verma as an imaginative tool for the re-interpretation of the
European imperial past in the South Asian continent and its repercussions on contemporary British
society.
Verma’s ‘act of translation’ of Molière and Buchner and Sophocles’ plays is imbued with experiences of
colonialism, migration and quest for cultural roots/routes, which critically reflects the cross-fertilisation
of contemporary British culture and makes his eclectic style one of one the most successful examples of
intercultural theatre in Britain. He achieves this by re-creating new historical and cultural settings for the
classical texts, while producing on the level of mise-en-scène a unique form of hybridisation of Eastern
and Western theatre traditions
The significance of Tara Arts’ work lies in the absence of a physical movement towards ‘the other’ –
exotic, threatening, mysterious as it might have been historically represented by the West. The paper
will reflect on the company’s intimate journey towards a fluid, fragmented and constantly re-invented
British/Asian identity, and Verma’s re-location of European culture within an ‘ethnic’ framework
traditionally used to define to non-European theatre traditions.
Christiane Schlote, University of Berne
From Illyria to the Punjab: the art of dramatic adaptation in British Asian theatre
Adaptation has not only been an elementary practice worldwide, it has also gained particular importance
in regard to diasporic, postcolonial and transactional cultural expressions. This paper aims at examining
the literary and dramaturgical strategies of dramatic rewritings by British Asian theatre artists, with a
particular focus on translation as adaptation, adaptations across genres and media, intercultural
intertextuality, canon discourses and aesthetics of revision and subversion. The following plays,
addressing a variety of different issues such as ethnic nationalism, intercultural relationships, secularism,
identity politics, class and gender relations, will serve as exemplary for different forms of conversions:
Rukhsana Ahmad’s play Black Shalwar, adapted from Saadat Hasan Manto’s short story “Kali Shalwar”
and produced by Kali Theatre in 1999; Tara Arts’ Twelfth Night with a British Asian cast and set in
contemporary India, which premiered at the Albery Theatre in London in 2004; and Ayub Khan Din’s
recent adaptation, Rafta Rafta (2007) of Bill Naughton’s play All in Good Time.
Royona Mitra, University of Wolverhampton
Cultural Performativity: Rewriting British Asian Theatre in Weaving Paths (Through Time...)
This paper attempts to theorise the role of the artist in the reconstruction of memory within a heritage
site through a phenomenological framework. It explores the relationship between spatial, temporal and
cultural memory within the site and the transmission of such memory into fiction, through the artist. It
articulates further the need to push the definition of British Asian Theatre beyond its historical identity
by engaging with the work of Sonia Sabri Dance Company whose artistic and progressive vision of British
Asian identity, challenges the conventional perception of this genre. To this end, I use as a case study my
collaboration with Sonia Sabri Dance Company and its three week residency at Bantock House in
Wolverhampton in May 2007, which culminated in the performance of Weaving Paths (Through Time...).
The project engaged in a creative exploration of the Edwardian manor house at two levels. Firstly, the
performers responded to the history of the house through the artifacts around them. Secondly, the
presence of a British Asian dance company comprised of artists from culturally diverse backgrounds,
performing in a quintessentially ‘English’ environment, allowed artistic commentary on the demographic
diversity of the people living in the West Midlands today. I propose that in our creative process, the
physical and metaphoric space of the manor house was our artifact, the performance our memory of a
memory, and our bodies were the site on which fiction was conceived, heritage was rewritten and a new
definition of the British Asian artist emerged.
Royona Mitra is a trained Indian classical dancer and a UK based dance-theatre practitioner. She is a
Senior Lecturer in Drama & Performance at the University of Wolverhampton, UK and is also enrolled on
a PhD programme at Royal Holloway College, University of London from where she graduated with an
MA in Physical Theatre. Her research interrogates the corporeal, aesthetic and sociological interplay
between Indian classical dance and European dance-theatre practice.
Mr. Quiver
In the final performance of this highly acclaimed production, live artist Rajni Shah metamorphoses
between Queen Elizabeth I and an Indian bride to bring to life the tensions and politics of colonialism
and the complexity of identity.
Rajni Shah is a performance artist, writer and producer currently based in London, UK. Her work
explores the fine boundaries between performers and audience, between fiction and stark reality, and
between stereotype and inner truth. She has performed in the UK and USA, including most recently the
National Review of Live Art, Fresh, Camden People’s Theatre, Chisenhale Dance Space, The Place and The
Chelsea Theatre. Rajni is currently an Artist Associate for Chisenhale Dance Space, a Creative Adviser for
Oxfordshire Touring Theatre Company, Project Director for 'Restock, Rethink, Reflect' with the Live Art
Development Agency, and a Live Art Development Agency One to One bursary recipient. She is an active
member of the New Work Network and Alternate ROOTS (USA). Please see www.rajnishah.com for a
performance history.
Cis O’Boyle is a London based lighting designer. Her most recent work before Mr Quiver has been The
Method & Eclectro at Oval house, Escapology by Chris Goode, and His Horses by Exit Strategy (Chris
Goode and Theron Schmidt). She has also designed for Odin (Denmark), the Drill Hall and Chelsea
theatres in London and the Sydney Opera House in Australia. She is a lecturer at Goldsmiths University in
London.
Following training at the Wimbledon School of Art, Lucille Acevedo-Jones has worked as a freelance
costume designer for the last four years. Recent theatre credits include: The Magic Hat (Cahoots NI
Production 2004), The Awkward Position (Rajni Shah Theatre), and The Canterbury Tales (Icon Theatre
Touring Production). Recent costume assistant credits include: Bullet Boy (BBC & Shine Ltd Feature Film),
Wondrous Oblivion (APT Productions), and Phantom of the Opera (Really Useful Feature Film).
Victoria Sams, Dickinson, US
Patriarchy and its discontents: the kitchen-sink drama of Tamasha
This paper examines Tamasha Theatre Company’s dramatizations of familial relationships in South Asian
British families in the context of post-WWII realist drama, focusing on one play set in the early 1970s
(East is East, 1997) and another set in the late 1990s (Balti Kings, 1999). Reading these plays as
microcosmic depictions of cultural transformations in contemporary Britain, the essay analyses their
connection of characters’ relationships and internal conflicts to larger societal concerns such as
economic aspirations, assimilation, religious and secular values, and racial discrimination.
Both plays work within a realist mode (the dominant mode of post-WWII British drama) with respect to
their uses of language, characterization, and setting to represent the formative impact of the social and
familial environment upon the individual characters. While East is East worked from a semiautobiographical playscript, Balti Kings was developed through extensive research involving interviews
with workers, managers, and customers of the Balti restaurant industry in Birmingham. This
comparative study of the two plays and their production histories will combine analysis of these
productions’ development and reception with close textual readings of the plays’ treatments of place
and of individual and collective memory.
Shanu Sadhwani, Goldsmiths, University of London
Culture hybridity and performance: crossing borders with Tara Arts
In recent years, coinciding with an increased interest in presentations and representations of culture,
anthropologists and sociologists have frequently turned to theatre and theatrical types of performances
as models and mirrors for understanding culture and society. This paper argues for the importance of
developing a distinctively sociological approach to theatre; the most collaborative, and hence social art
form, with an emphasis upon the culturally hybrid performance, specifically presented by British Asian
performances.
Theatre can in such cases be an important site for the evocation of communal memory and the
production of locality. It is precisely due to the Asian diaspora that locality of culture and locality
geographically are at odds, resulting in art that seeks to reconcile these differences through discourse,
that is, British Asian performance.
Whilst the term ‘British Asian’ is problematic and seemingly denotes a homogeneous group, it allows us
to view performances under this rubric as culturally hybrid. The resulting aesthetic is one that has
political and social consequences for the audiences and performers alike. The social and political
significance of this hybridised aesthetic is the underlying exploration of this paper.
This paper turns to a particular case: the forerunner of the field, Tara Arts. A close examination of two
productions will allow us to examine the hybrid aesthetic developed as well as the development of the
social and political discourse within the work. A Journey to the West (2002), examined the Asian
diaspora, following the journey of three generations of South Asians, and was developed with the
community. The Tempest (2007), Tara’s most recent work, is a “poem on colonialism” 1 and will be
examined in this light. A careful look at these performances will emphasise how British Asian
performances enact timely local concerns that are at the same time a reflection of larger socio-cultural
realities.
1.
Jatinder Verma, 15 March 2007.
Giovanna Buonanno, University of Modena and Reggio Emilia, Italy
Between page and stage: Meera Syal and/in British Asian culture
The important role played by Meera Syal in British Asian theatre can hardly be questioned as her career
has spanned different, significant moments of its relatively recent history and has contributed to its
development in a variety of ways: from her work with the Asian Co-operative Theatre in the 1980s and
her scripts and plays evocative of Asian life in Britain in the early 1990s — crucial years in articulating the
debate around Black and Asian arts and aesthetics— to her role as a scriptwriter for the glossy ―and
fairly controversial― Bollywood inspired musical Bombay Dreams (2002), to her current performance as
Lopa Dutt in Rafta Rafta at the National Theatre, which marks what could be seen as a “critical return” to
a fairly traditional “Mrs Patel-like” theatre role, one that constantly confronts actresses of Asian
parentage with their “burden of representation” and the constraint of having to act up to their cultural
heritage and ethnicity.
Over the years Syal has complemented her stage career with an intense experimentation in writing
across different genres and for the media circuit, which has gained her fame, while also significantly
contributing to the increased visibility of British Asian culture in Britain. In this paper I intend to focus
particularly on the relationship between the page and the stage and they way they are both crucial in
sustaining Syal’s complex process of representing and performing British Asian (gendered) identity across
a variety of genres and in the media.
Dominic Hingorani, Director
An Asian actor prepares: ethnicity and performer training
This paper will begin to examine performer training for British Asian actors and explore how that training
engages with ethnicity and difference and addresses issues such as stereotyping and marginalisation in
performance.
I shall draw on the work of Kristine Landon-Smith, Artistic Director of Tamasha Theatre Company and
Jatinder Verma, Artistic Director of Tara Arts Theatre Company in providing actor training for British
Asian actors.
I shall demonstrate practical examples of their actor training methodology and use them as a basis for
discussing the ways in which this training engages with such questions as:
How should a British Asian actor be trained?
Is there representation beyond ethnicity for the British Asian actor?
Is there a need for ethnic identified actor training?
Is ethnic identified performer training a recognition of difference or a return to the margins?
Why should British Asian performer training differ from that of the ‘mainstream’?
How can actor training for British Asian actors address such issues as typecasting and stereotyping?
Kristine Landon-Smith, Artistic Director, Tamasha Theatre Company
Actor Training and Multiculturalism
I want to talk about how in any training I believe it is essential to find and nurture the distinctive spirit of
the performer. Cultural context and language are key factors in this exploration.
This means speaking to different cultural contexts head on: not being afraid to have the cultural context
of each actor on the table in the rehearsal room, not being afraid to mine the cultural landscapes of an
individual. I have been surprised when actors reveal to me that their cultural context has often been
ignored in the rehearsal room, and often by directors without the same cultural context, who are afraid
to go there.
So as a director/teacher I take quite an active role in order to act as a catalyst and to access the cultural
context of the individual. I place myself as an insider, not an outsider. I engage actively in cultural
interplay.
The cultural theorist Raymond Williams describes culture as “ the deep personal meanings… the special
processes of discovery and creative effort … the way in which people write themselves into the land”.
The land … this land … Britain is characterised by a web of cultures which connect in history, geography,
politics, memory, imagination, travel and technology to a wider global landscape of cultural
interconnectedness.
What do intercultural and intracultural theories offer theatre practitioners? I translate this into practice
and try to help actors to make the bridge between their own identity and the world with which they are
engaging. In my work I try to tease out meaning, orchestrate, sketch – take an active role where I
establish an environment of cultural interplay at the heart of each piece of work. I put myself not in a
position of neutrality, but rather in a position of playfulness and profound engagement in respect of
cultures in performance
Working in this way, I believe we might start to eradicate any conversations around multiracial casting.
The question “Do I have a Chinese-origin, Basian-origin actor in my production of The Tempest?“
becomes irrelevant if the work is going to be moulded by the cultural context of the performer.
Kristine Landon-Smith is joint founder and Artistic Director of Tamasha and has directed all of the
company’s shows. Her 1996 production, East is East, was nominated for an Olivier award and her original
production of Fourteen Songs, Two Weddings and a Funeral won the Barclays Theatre Award for Best
New Musical. Kristine has directed with the Royal Court Theatre, Bristol Old Vic, Palace Theatre Westcliff,
Nitro, Yellow Earth Theatre and the Royal Danish Theatre. Her radio credits for BBC include A Yearning,
Women of the Dust (both winners of CRE Race in the Media Awards) and an adaptation of Lysistrata for
BBC World Service. Most recently, Kristine directed The Trouble with Asian Men (artsdepot, Soho Theatre
and UK tours), A Fine Balance (Hampstead Theatre and UK tour),Tamasha’s first children’s play, Child of
the Divide (Polka Theatre, artsdepot and UK and US tours) and a co-production with Rewrite, involving a
youth cast: Lyrical MC (London venues).
Jatinder Verma, Artistic Director, Tara Arts
Training, in the context of theatre, is best understood as 'preparing the actor'. How far does
'multiculturalism' impinge on modern actors' training? What form does (could) it take? Does it matter? I
will be exploring with colleagues some of these concerns, as the nature of multiculturalism morphs in an
increasingly globalised, yet parochial, world.
Jatinder Verma is co-founder and Artistic Director of Tara Arts, the pioneering cross-cultural theatre
company which marked its 30th year in 2007 with a critically-acclaimed production of The Tempest. The
company tours nationally and internationally, and co-producers with Tara include the National Theatre.
Author of The Story of Diwali, a book for children, Jatinder has also published several articles exploring
the nature of modern cross-culturalism. He has helped establish a Foundation Year design course on
Multicultural Theatre Practice - the first of its kind in the country - at Wimbledon College of Design,
where he is also Course Director. His frequent work on Radio and TV includes the Sony Award winning
Ashes to the Ganges and the 3-part serialisation (with Claudia Mayer) of The Mahabharata (both for BBC
Radio 4).
Jatinder is Visiting Professor at Royal Holloway College, and holds Honorary Doctorates from both Exeter
and Leicester De Montfort Universities.
Kully Thiarai, Freelance Theatre Director and Director of Theatre Writing Partnership
Approaches to Development of New Writing
My paper will discuss the ways in which I have always endeavoured to find news ways to fill the gap in
new writing. Over the years I have worked with and commissioned many writers. I have also created
bespoke programmes to encourage theatre writing and devised and worked with writers to create new
work for particular audiences. The early Asian Women's work I was involved with came through Red
Ladder, shows like Bhangra Girls by Nandita Ghose, Consequences by Mary Cooper (written in
collaboration with young Asian Girls from Leeds), Kaahini by Maya Chowdhry. They all placed young
Asian women in the central roles and reflected the world from their perspectives and toured to
communities across the country. Projects like Hasana at Leicester enabled 6 Asian writers to create a
new mid-scale show for the main stage at Leicester. This became the model used to set up the Eclipse
Writers Project. I now run Theatre Writing Partnership which is about encouraging and enhancing the
theatre writing culture in the East Midlands - working with new voices and established writers.
Joint Artistic Director – Leicester Haymarket Theatre
With Paul Kerryson leads on all aspects of the artistic vision and programming for all creative activity on
and off stages. Kully is one of the architects of the original artistic vision and brief for a new theatre for
Leicester. A re-imagining of what a 21st century theatre organisation might be like both in its physical
environment and also in its ethos and practice - Kully has been actively involved in the development of
this new cultural and social enterprise that celebrates the creative spirit of the diverse communities of
Leicester and beyond.
Directing credits at Leicester include: Award winning international tour - The Bogus Woman (UK,
Adelaide, New York) Beautiful Thing, The Fortune Club – Tricycle Theatre/LHT, The Happy Prince,
Fugard’s Master Harold and the Boys, Captured Live! (large scale site specific multi-media piece devised
with young people) West Side Story, Bollywood Jane.
Previous work includes:
Artistic Advisor for Contact Theatre, Manchester
Created new artistic vision, organisational structure, three-year business plan and re-launch programme
as part of Contact Theatre’s £5 million re-development.
Artistic Director and Chief Executive – Red Ladder Theatre Company
Writing-led National touring company producing new work for youth audiences who had little or no
access to the arts. Commissioned, produced and directed a diverse range of work nationally and
internationally including plays by Roy Williams, Lin Coghlan and Philip Osment. Set up a number of new
initiatives including The Asian Theatre School.
Janet Steel, Artistic Director, Kali Theatre Company
New Writing Initiatives
Kali Theatre Company nurtures, supports and produces new writing by Asian Women. Over the past five
years Kali has received over 80 new scripts of varying quality and length and has worked with over 40 of
these writers. Initiatives that reach out and encourage new voices to engage with and write for the
theatre are not only important, they are vital if we want to keep theatre alive. The Arts are only a part of
what we call Culture. If theatre is to prosper, move into the future and leave a legacy, it is imperative
that it embraces everything that Culture has to offer. Unless an effort is made to reach every corner of
our multi-cultural society this will never happen and we shall be the poorer.
Janet began her career in theatre in her teens as an actress, appearing in many theatre, television and
radio productions. Theatre includes: Cinders, A Colder Climate-Royal Court, Blood Wedding-Half Moon,
Romeo and Juliet-Sherman Theatre and Albany Empire, Oedipus Rex-Tara Arts. Television Includes: An
English Christmas, The Bride, Gems, The Refuge and Shalom Salaam.
Janet began her directing Career as an assistant and then associate to Tessa Schneideman and The Loose
Change Theatre Company. They specialized in producing UK premiers by renowned Spanish authors at
BAC, which was where Janet directed her first full Length piece, White Biting Dog by Judith Thompson.
Directing credits include: : Behzti by Gurpreet Kaur Bhatti -The Birmingham Rep, April in Paris, Bretevski
Street, A Hard Rain and Top Girls-The Royal Theatre, Northampton, Exodus, as part of the Millennium
Mysteries-Belgrade Coventry, The Scratch & Spinning Jenny-BAC, Brecht's Antigone & The Mother,
Orpheus Descending, An Ideal Husband, Romeo & Juliet, The Knockey and Serious Money -Rose Bruford
College, Don Juan Comes Home From The War & The House of Bernarda Alba- Mountview.
Since 2003 Janet has been Artistic Director of Kali Theatre Company, which is a new writing company for
Asian Women. Since joining the company has worked with over 50 new writers and has produced over
40 new play readings. Janet has directed National tours of; Sock 'em with Honey by Bapsi Sidhwa,
Calcutta Kosher by ShelleySilas, Chaos and Paper Thin by Azma Dar and Dead Eye by Amber Lone.
Janet has an taught both acting and directing at a number of youth theatres, Drama Colleges and
Universities, holds an MA with Distinction in Theatre Practices and is currently working towards an MA in
Cultural Leadership.
Jerri Daboo, University of Exeter
British Asian Theatre and the Mainstream: identity, place, culture
This talk will examine the recent increase in commercial performances that have an ‘Indian theme’ or
utilise Indian aesthetics in large-scale theatres. It will question why this recent appropriation of Indian
and British Asian culture has taken place, and the potential effects this may have on British Asian
companies. A selection of productions will be examined through questioning the political and economic
implications of this type of commercial appropriation in main-stream theatre, and how this might create
a particular image and identification of British Asian culture for both Asian and non-Asian audiences. This
will be examined through theories from cultural geography and postcolonial studies, amongst others. It
is interesting to note that this particular increase in these types of productions has occurred during the
period of the British Asian Theatre Project at the University of Exeter.
Suman Bhuchar, University of Westminster
Marketing of Bombay Dreams (2002)
Bollywood musical produced by Andrew Lloyd Webber
Book by Meera Syal
Directed by Steven Pimlott
Most people have come across Bombay Dreams, as being the first inter-cultural musical presented in the
West End, in contemporary times.
Although, there are numerous opinions by audiences, academics and theatre practitioners about the
show, its marketing was something quite unique for commercial theatre, marrying as it did, established
techniques with community, outreach and Asian marketing -- values more at home in funded theatre.
This paper will looks at how the show was marketed to audiences – describe the techniques employed
by the production company, RUG, and the marketing company, Dewynters, working as it did, with two
special ‘Asian’ marketing consultants, to ensure that the show had the widest possible audience reach,
but did not at the same time alienate the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical going audience.
The show, itself was quite ‘daring’ from the position of a west end commercial producer, as it was
entering uncharted waters, but what drew Webber to this idea was his interest in the music of
Bollywood composer, A.R. Rahman, and this lead to collaboration between British & Asian artists, from
UK & India on several fronts.
It can also be argued that the climate was right at that point, as British Asian theatre, had proved to be
sustainable on an audience front, but in the subsidized sector.
As someone who was involved in marketing this show, I think it was a very interesting project, and as
such it deserves to be discussed in a detailed manner.
Kuljit Bhamra, musician, composer, producer
Mixing With The Mainstream & Music in Theatre
My passion for composition and live music performance has given me unique experiences over the years.
Productions that I have been involved in include:
King Cotton (The Lowry, director – Jude Kelly)
Deranged Marriage (Rifco Arts, director Pravesh Kumar)
The Ramayana (National Theatre, director Indhu Rubasingham)
The Far Pavilions (Shaftesbury Theatre, director Gale Edwards)
Laila Majnun (MAC, director Harmage Kalirai)
Bombay Dreams (RUG, director Steven Pimlott)
It is a common experience for me to turn up to a soundtrack recording session or band call session for a
theatre production, set up within the orchestra, be handed a sheet of paper with lots of black dots on it,
and be expected to start playing without a single dialogue about what to play, what not to tune to. In
this session and the workshop on Sunday, I intend to explore the following questions:
1. Why isn't live music used widely in British Asian Theatre?
2. Have British Asian audiences' expectations and relationship to seeing a live orchestra been
coloured by our past diet of Bombay films where actors always have 'invisible' playback singers
singing for them.
3. Is there a ticket price threshold? If so, would the presence of a live orchestra help to raise this?
4. Is it possible to work with musicians trained in the Guru tradition in theatre?
5. Are Asian musicians reliable/professional?
6. Given the exponential increase over the last decade in the number of full time musicians playing
Indian instruments, what systems need to be put into place that allow them to perform
alongside western musicians?
7. Given that orchestras are generally hidden in the pit, do audiences actually care whether the
music is performed live or not?
In addition to the his theatre work listed above, Kuljit spearheaded the Bhangra movement, composed
and produced over 2000 songs and is responsible for the rise to fame of numerous Bhangra and
Bollywood stars.
For 10 years he has worked both independently and collaboratively on film scores, including the
soundtrack for the award winning Bhaji on the Beach, Bend it like Beckham, and appearances on The
Guru, The Four Feathers and more recently Alexander, Charlie & The Chocolate Factory and Brick Lane.
He has recently been appointed Artistic Director for The Society For The Promotion Of New Music
(SPNM) and is creating a programme of events allowing musicians from differing cultures and musical
backgrounds to collaborate.
Steven Barfield, University of Westminster
The Empire Writes Sidewards: Limit Events of ‘British South Asian Theatre’.
This paper will explore performances/productions/plays that might be considered as at the margins of
any definition of British South Asian theatre in order to think through a number of questions and issues.
The RSC’s 2003 production (directed by Tim Supple) of Salman Rushdie’s Midnight’s Children, David
Farr’s 2007 retelling of Ramayana at the Lyric Hammersmith, Tim Supple’s ‘Asian’ styled production of A
Midsummer Night’s Dream at the Roundhouse (2007) and Theatre De Complicite’s, A Disappearing
Number (Barbican, 2007).
In all of these cases the tendency would be to judge these as examples that do not belong to British
South Asian theatrical performances/plays because in the main the originating theatre companies are
not predominantly of South Asian extraction, and much the same may be said of the more well known
popular culture musical Bombay Dreams. That is to say despite elements of material or of cast or of
themes there is a dominant definitions of what constitutes British South Asian theatre which these
productions point to. In exploring how these plays and productions work I will therefore also be using
them to reflect on how definitions of British South Asian theatre have been derived and whether these
can be considered to be definitions that derive from aesthetic or principally political grounds. In turning
to postcolonial politics then, I will consider the pros and cons of such definitions in terms of postcolonial
theory and argue that particular version of cultural and often biological neo-essentialism (race) and
quasi-indigenous authenticity lie behind most definitions of what constitute British South Asian theatre
as well as a theatrical elaboration of the now familiar concept of ‘writing back from the margins (The
Empire Writes Back). Finally, I will be using these examples to contest one of the typical theses produced
by this critical orientation. Jen Harvie’s chapter in Staging the UK is exemplary in this regard as she
reproduces a familiar opposition between Orientalist colonial work in the shape of Bombay Dreams
(2002)and subversive, transgressive, postcolonial work in the shape of Tamasha’s Fourteen Songs, Two
Weddings and a Funeral (1998, 2001) although both productions and performances deploy tropes from
Bollywood. This seems to me a worrying binary opposition and one which I suggest considering the ‘limit
texts’ of British South Asian theatre will allow us to reconceptualise in a different kind of way.
Lia W. Liang, Royal Holloway, University of London
Assembling multi-cultural facets in Yellow Earth Theatre's King Lear (2006)
In 2006, Yellow Earth Theatre (YET) staged a bilingual King Lear that was set in the year 2020 in a
cosmopolitan Shanghai. It was premiered in Shanghai then toured in the UK, and was part of the RSC’s
“Complete Work” season. It was a bilingual production that used only a small cast of actors, half of
whom spoke only English while others were mainly Mandarin speakers. Drawing on his own diasporic
experiences, director David Tse set out to explore issues such as the generation gap, sibling rivalry, and
family friction caused by cultural differences among generations. Employing a range of multi-media
settings and with all cast members having East Asian appearances, Tse had transferred the play from a
story about an old king of England to a tale of an elderly Chinese entrepreneur.
This paper will discuss how Tse reshaped the cultural landscape in this futuristic theatre production.
Tse’s choice to use two languages precisely showed a world that is dominated by conflicts in values and
cultural orientations. Objects from and references to different cultures are juxtaposed and forced to coexist with each other in this setting. The production thus successfully portrayed a situation in which
original cultural references and hierarchies are being demolished and shuffled by many other forces. This
paper therefore considers the use of such “assembling” of various cultural references in light of their
effects onstage in a production that emphasised the multi-cultural character of a modern cosmopolitan
city.
Vayu Naidu, Artistic Director, Vayu Naidu Theatre Company
Metaphor and Migration of multiculturalisms: Annie Besant in England and India
Annie Besant was a formidable figure at a formidable time. Heralding the Bryant and May Match Girls
Strike in England after falling out of love with Anglicanism, she went on to embrace Home Rule for India
and Theosophy between 1916-1933. Celebrated in India, without much knowledge of her life, and air
brushed from British History, Annie Besant was iconic in a brand of interculturalism that was challenging
to the imperialist and the colonised.
In the 60th anniversary year of Independence, Vayu Naidu Company commissioned and co- produced
with Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre Mistaken…Annie Besant in India by Rukhsana Ahmad, directed
by Chris Banfield. It toured across England and India in 2007 for eight weeks. The work encountered
diverse perspectives on multiculturalism in its making, touring across continents, polarities of
perceptions about Storytelling and Theatre, and indeed the notion of the voice of diaspora over shared
heritages. This paper examines the responses to the work and history from bi-cultural perspectives while
shaping a meta theatre that redefines multiculturalism and internationalism in both England and India.
Vayu came to England in 1988 to study at the University of Leeds for her doctorate, on Indian
Performance Oral traditions and their interpretations in contemporary western theatre. Her subsequent
career has included teaching, writing and performance, both as a solo artist and collaborating with
musicians and composers including Judith Weir. She was AHRC Post-doctoral Fellow in Creative and
Performing Arts at Kent from 2001 – 2004. In 2001 she founded Vayu Naidu Company to promote
storytelling theatre with an intercultural and diasporic content. Its inaugural production was South,
which she wrote and performed together with musician Orphy Robinson and three dancers in a UK
national tour directed by Chris Banfield (2003). In 2007 Mistaken… Annie Besant in India by Rukhsana
Ahmad, a new play commissioned by Vayu, and in which she appeared as the Storyteller, toured the UK
and India in a co-production with Guildford’s Yvonne Arnaud Theatre.
Her playwriting work includes: There Comes a Karma, and When both directed by Vanessa Whitburn,
BBC Radio 4 Drama; Playboy of the Asian World, (1999); Nine Nights, directed by Chris Banfield; and
Guess Who’s Coming to Christmas? - BBC Radio 4 (2003). Vayu’s books for children are published by
Wayland Publishers, Collins UK and Tulika Books in Chennai, India.
In 2007 she was awarded a SEEDA Art Plus development award, and also an award from Birmingham’s
Collide festival as a BME artist, to develop her new work Bhakti and the Blues. She was on the advisory
committee of Black Regional Initiative of Theatre at Arts Council England, and chaired the Sustained
Theatre Archiving group in 2007.
www.vayunaiducompany.org.uk
Lucia King, Performance Documenter
At Play, a video installation
I will discuss the making of the video installation At Play (shown in repeated screenings at the
conference). Here, a group of actors on a film set in New Delhi are working on a film adaptation of South
Indian director, Roysten Abel’s version of Shakespeare’s Othello, performed in the genre of Kathakali.
Abel’s project adds a satirical edge by locating his film in the cynical acting world of today’s Delhi.
Intervening during the film shoot, my partner Smita Bharti and I used our cameras as ‘rogue instruments’
to capture what was not meant to be seen by Abel’s audiences: the cast’s shifting of realities between
their staged and unstaged moments. I will also talk about my experience of the social and professional
dynamic of Indian performance, and about my creative choices in mediating these through the film
camera. Audiences will observe briefly the dialogue between Kathakali and Shakespearean dramatic
forms in the film clips.
Sudipto Chatterjee, Loughborough University
Man of the Heart: Performing between Language, Music & Ethnography
Man of the Heart is a multi-media solo-performance incorporating live music, dance, spoken word, video
and recorded audio. Without assuming any ‘character’ or ‘story’, it attempts to speak/perform around
the life and times of Lalon Shah Phokir, the nineteenth century Bengali Sufi saint and song-maker, whose
fame stretches across the political and religious borders dividing Bangladesh and West Bengal (India).
Man of the Heart is also an exploratory piece on the body-based philosophy and practice of a sect among
Bengali Sufis known as Bauls. Of them, Lalon Shah is celebrated as the greatest. Lalon practised
personally but spoke publicly through his music. His performance and practice em-bodied a highly
syncretic philosophy that drew from diverse religious sources and preached a radically different search
for divinity that, he said, was to be located within the corporeal frame.
The Man of the Heart Project was launched in 2005, when I started working with the Calcutta-based
Indian director Suman Mukherjee at the University of California-Berkeley. However, its preparation goes
back to the early nineties when the ethnographic research began in Bangladesh and other parts of
Bengal. The final scripting and composition happened in 2005. In 2006, the production had its off-offBroadway run in New York. It went closest to home when the production opened in Calcutta, in
December 2007.
This mediated presentation delineates the various responses this production has elicited from its
audience, situated as it is in the interstices between language, performance and anthropological
discourse.
How many languages can performance withstand?
Claudia Mayer, Associate Director (Design), Tara Arts
Claudia Mayer has worked on the following Tara productions: Exodus, Genesis, Revelations, 2001 a
Ramayan Odyssey, the epic trilogy Journey to the West, A Taste for Mangoes, The Merchant of Venice,
An Enemy of the People, The Marriage of Figaro, and most recently The Tempest. Her paper will explore
the question of whether there are any special demands made by designing for Asian theatre.
Born in Australia, Claudia spent her early years in India and France. She studied French at Sussex, and
theatre design with Percy Harris at the Motley Theatre Design Course. She is currently Visiting Lecturer
at Croydon College of Art and Design, Wimbledon College of Art and National School of Drama, Delhi.
Her previous posts include Head of Design at the Victoria Theatre, Stoke-on-Trent; Associate Designer at
the Thorndike Theatre, Leatherhead and Course Tutor at the Motley Theatre Design Course.
Claudia has worked for a wide range of regional and London theatres including the Royal Court Theatre,
the Young Vic, the Gate Theatre, the Lyceum Theatre, Edinburgh, the West Yorkshire Playhouse, the
Ambassadors Theatre, Birmingham Rep, Sadlers Wells, Riverside Studios, Liverpool Playhouse, Sheffield
Crucible, Manchester Library Theatre, Bolton Octagon, and Chester Gateway Theatre. She has also
worked in opera and ballet for The Royal Ballet, Broomhill Opera, The Royal Opera House, Wilton’s Music
Hall, English Touring Opera, Pimlico Opera, Garden Venture, British Youth Opera. Her touring work
includes Oxford Stage Company, 7:84 England, Monstrous Regiment, Pip Simmons Theatre Group, Joint
Stock, Foco Novo, The London Theatre Ensemble, Mrs Worthington’s Daughters, and two bilingual/twocountry shows (UK and Portugal, UK and France) and one three-country/trilingual piece (UK, France and
Belgium). Her film and TV work includes Walker, dir. Alex Cox, Seaside Story, dir Mark-Dornford May, Let
him have it, dir Alex Cox, Antony and Cleopatra, dir Jatinder Verma, The Story of India, presented by
Michael Wood, (both BBC).
With Jatinder Verma she co-wrote an adaptation of The Mahabharata for BBC Radio 4 Classic Serial
(2007), and two plays for children When the Lights went Out and The Genie of Samarkand.
Sue Mayes, Designer
My paper will focus on my design work with Tamasha Theatre Company with illustrated examples of
selected productions, and the research-based process which is central to my approach.
Sue Mayes trained at Central School of Art and Design (Central St. Martins) in the 1970’s. Her career
started at Ipswich Rep then went on to residences at the Belgrade Theatre in Education Coventry,
Contact Theatre Manchester and The Everyman Theatre Liverpool. Her freelance work has included
designs for:- Tamasha Theatre Company; Bristol Old Vic Theatre; Nitro Theatre Company; Derby
Playhouse; Theatre Royal Stratford East; and the Royal Shakespeare Theatre Company. Recent designs
include A Fine Balance for Tamasha at the Hampstead Theatre and Singing Stamping and Shouting Home
at Polka Theatre.
Sue teaches regularly at drama schools across London including RADA and the Guildhall School of Music
and Drama, and she has recently moved into film as production designer on Two Minutes for the BBC.
She is also a Creative Director with the Events Design Company Visualfeast.
Chandrika Patel, University of Exeter
A Fine Balance? Exploring the relationship between the stage-picture and social characterisation
Through interpretation of signs, this essay examines the relationship between the material objects
identified in the stage-picture with the social identities of the characters in British Asian Theatre
company Tamasha's production of A Fine Balance based on the Booker-nominated Canadian-Indian
writer Rohinton Mistry's novel. I begin the paper by outlining notions behind the designer Sue Mayes’s
set that contributed towards the ‘realistic’ set constructing the fictional landscape of an urban street in
India. The ‘dialogue’ between the ‘realistic’ set and Brechtian acting approach is explored in reference to
the identity of the theatre company and in the portrayal of caste relations between the ‘Indian’
characters played by mainly British Asian cast.
Dominic Rai, Artistic Director, Man Mela Theatre Company
Voices of Partition
Since 2005 I have been developing a new bi-lingual play, A Lifetime on Tiptoes, by the Punjabi poet
Mazhar Tirmazi. The play explores the tragic stories of those who experienced the traumas of Partition in
1947 and has been developed through a series of workshops across the UK. It received rehearsed
readings in Glasgow and Bristol in 2007, the 60th anniversary of Partition.
According to Tirmazi, ‘today’s multi-faith society is faced with the same sort of segregation of
communities and hatred between the faiths. The increased division among Punjabis seems to be rooted
in the animosities incited in the people of the 1947 partition. History appears to be repeating itself and
staging yet another drama on a global scale of growing hatred which continues to divide people in the
name of religion. My play acts not just as a nostalgic reminder of the peace and unity of the past but as
an active instrument of struggle for peace and harmony in today’s world’.
In this paper I’d like to take the developmental work of A Lifetime on Tiptoes as a model, to share
experiences and pose three questions:
1. The value of engaging with the community.
2. The elements required to make creative space for this to happen.
3. Ways in which work with the community might move our work forward in the next decade to
ensure work continues to develop.
Dominic Rai is from Birmingham. He works as a freelance director/dramaturge and is director of Londonbased Man Mela Theatre Company. He is especially interested in new writing that engages young people
and community audiences. He is consultant to Exeter University’s British Asian theatre project and is
working on the Arts Council of England’s International delivery group. As a writer Dominic has worked
with the BBC Singers on The Ballad of Bethnal Green 2004, The Sunay’ha festival London of new work
from Pakistan 2005, directing Sheesh Mahal by Najam Hussain Syed. Taught the World theatre course at
Loughborough University 2005/6, and directed Fall Out by Roy Williams as a site specific piece at Sir
George Monoux College, Walthamstow, East London, 2006.
Arti Prashar, Artistic Director, Spare Tyre Company
Disabled, gifted and Asian
Disability theatre has a severe lack of Asian representation and despite the Disability Discrimination Act
(DDA) the future looks bleak for aspiring disabled Asian artists. The struggles faced by Black and Asian
artists, during the 70’s and 80’s, seem to be echoing currently within disability arts. So how do we get
Asian parents to understand the power and potential of creativity of those in their care? How can these
artists be nurtured and skilled up? What resources need to be put in place?
Community and educational theatre/arts have a huge role to play in addressing some of the questions
raised. It is vital for the growth of any society that all sections of that society have a voice, and engage
fully in cultural activity.
When will disabled gifted Asian artists be able to influence mainstream arts, disability arts and British
Asian theatre? Are we waiting for an Asian Graeae?
Parminder Vir OBE, Non Executive Director, DCMS
My paper will draw on my work in Policy and Strategy on the creative and cultural industries reflecting
on my role in the GLC supporting what was than described as “Ethnic Arts” to the present as Non
Executive Director on the DCMS Board. In addition I will share the findings of a mapping report for the
LDA on the diversity strategies of the mainstream cultural and creative institutions. I will discuss the
impact of the Diversity Audit and five year action plan I produced for the Royal Shakespeare Company on
its artistic programme, casting, employment, talent development and Board representations. Finally I
will share my experience of being a Board Director of Young Vic Theatre and challenges of embedding
diversity into the overall company business.
Parminder Vir was born in the Punjab, India and came to England at the age of 10. She began her career
in arts administration, programming film festivals and arts programmes at the Commonwealth Institute
and as Head of Arts Department in the Greater London Council was responsible for funding and policy
development. Parminder is an award-winning film and television producer with 20 years of production
experience of drama, documentary, current affairs and entertainment, working for the BBC, ITV, Channel
Four, major international channels and her own independent production company, Formation Films.
Parminder worked as Business Development Consultant to the Managing Director MTV, Executive
Director ITV, Chief Executive Officer Royal Shakespeare Company, and as Business Ambassador for the
Creative Industries to the London Development Agency on how diversity can benefit business with
respect to talent, audiences and markets. She worked as Executive Producer and Diversity Advisor at
Carlton Television (May 1996-May 2004), reporting to the Chief Executive of Broadcasting and Director
of Programmes until Carlton merged with ITV. At Carlton Television, she produced and executiveproduced a number of programmes, including award-winning Single Voices, Melting Pot, Carlton’s
Multicultural Achievement Awards, Music of Black Origins Awards (MOBO) and Ethnic Minorities in the
Media Awards (EMMA). She served as a Board Director of the UK Film Council (1999-2005), responsible
for policy on diversity, co-production treaties, skills-training and specialised distribution. She was the Cofounder of the Cultural Diversity Network (CDN), an alliance of UK Broadcasters working towards greater
diversity in British Television, set up in 2000 and still active. In February 2006 she was appointed NonExecutive Director to the Board of Department for Culture, Media and Sports (DCMS) and has
contributed extensively to the production of the Department’s Diversity, International and the Creative
Economy Strategies. Parminder recently joined Spectrum Value Partners, UK’s leading media and
management consulting companies, to help develop their UK India consulting business. Prior to that she
was with Ingenious Media, UK’s leading media investment and advisory group, where she established a
World Cinema Fund, investing in cross-cultural films, capable of commercial and crossover appeal from
the emerging markets.
Parminder was awarded an OBE for her services to the Broadcasting and Film industry in the Queen’s
birthday honours list in June 2002, the Asian Women of Achievement Award for Media in May 2001, the
Media and Arts Award at the Asian Jewel Awards in July 2003 and the Windrush Diversity Award in 1999.