2019
THROUGH THE KĀLI EROS \ immersive performance in installation
An immersive and hypnotic performance in installation, with collaborating artists, setting a confluence in issues pertaining to queer subjectivity and ecofeminism. Drawing upon diverse arrangements: of fragmented sound score in Indian classical music vocals layered with camp sounds, prolonged conversation in gibberish, along with deconstructed Indian classical dance movements and contact improvisation – the project attends to realities of the post-colonial world, on topics related to power dynamics, queer bodies, ecology and eventually questioning heterosexist notions of nature and consumption.
The work interlaces a myriad of haunting gestures and fluctuating movements as acts, interspersed with a film projected on suspended drawing surfaces in muslin cloth. These acts are fragmented in nature and create a concocted world charged with pathos and eros. Gibberish provides an oscillating confusion of emotions - which all unfold on a cracked dirt ground within Knockdown Center's industrial space in Brooklyn, NY. And reflected on a chapter from 12th century Sanskrit tome “Manasollasà” that addresses the nature of dance and bodies.
A suggested return to primal origin is portrayed with animalistic combats in love, control and greed.
Kāli, the Hindu goddess of destruction, power, eros and vulnerability is employed here as a trope to incarnate plural expressions layered in fragments creating hybrid meanings. And a cultural cleansing mechanism.
Kuldeep Singh on concept, installation design and movement
Cole Highnam on movement
Jeffrey Grunthaner on electric guitar drone
Harsh Shah on sitar
This project was performed at Knockdown Center, Queens, NY
With support from Residency Unlimited, Brooklyn, NY
image courtesy - Zhiyuan Yang
