A letter from Artist in residence Sankar Venkateswaran

A letter from Artist in residence Sankar Venkateswaran. [dated March 2011]

The dates in the calendar are closer than they appear…

With a little less than three weeks to return to India after the three months in Switzerland, I am left with the sound of steel ringing in my ears – sounds ranging from cow bells to steel pans and of the most sophisticated and very recently invented Swiss idiophone instrument – The Hang.

And what comes in my mind when I close my eyes are the various masks that I have seen here - new, old, rural, folk, archaic, futuristic - with various looks - some are happy, some are vice, some are otherwise, some look dim, some are condescending – however they all express one thing – a revelation of the self. Carpenters, mountaineers, doctors, farmers – people from all walk of life come together to celebrate the fasnachts – people share food, music, dance and joy. Each village and each city has its own unique way of doing the facnacht and they have distinctive designs for what they wear, which, in many ways, assert their identity and bond them together as a community. In fact, one could look at some of these fasnachts as grand choreographies!

I was very fortunate to see various productions, both theatre and dance – a few of them are extraordinarily superb – Zimmerman & de Perrot, for instance. This has given me some idea about the European sensibilities of performance appreciation – thanks to Martha Monstein and Sandro Lunin who made sure that I see the best and the most unique.

I was lucky to meet and interact with various artists based in Switzerland – actors, directors, dramaturges, dancers, technicians, and of course the wonderful people at Rote Fabrik and the most warm hearted people from the Pro Helvetia office – Alexandra Von Arx, to be specially mentioned – because of her, I could meet the Hang makers of Bern and I was able to have my hands on the Hang which otherwise seems a very difficult and expensive instrument to access. I do have some dreams in my mind towards creating a work and towards that, collaboratively making a new instrument hybridizing the Hang and the Mizhavu of Kerala – I have had some preliminary discussions with the Hang makers Felix and Sabina regarding this and they seem to be inspired by this idea. It was surprising to learn that the early Hang was a marriage between the steel pan of Trinidad and the Ghatam of South India that happened in Switzerland!

Travelling in Switzerland is free! Not for all, but for me – thanks again to Pro Helvetia - my imagination and inspiration has no limits with access to the Hanghaus, various cities, villages and wide range of cultural institutions and museums. I was so inspired and moved to see the works of Picasso, Giacometti and Carl Jung among many others in real.

The three month residency was also a rigorous phase of soul searching for me – how can I make sense out of this residency and how do I synthesize this experience into a piece of performance that would make sense? I am inclined to make a solo self devised piece which brings these elements together and bridges my sensibilities of theatre with what I see here. But this needs more thought and homework from me before arriving certainty. With one more fasnacht left for me in Basel – which is at the core of my proposal to Pro Helvetia – that is to look at the correlation between the rhythms that are heard and the rhythms that are seen and the relationships of a particular subject (Sujet) with these rhythms and designs, my mind is mapping something significant – I think. Sankar Venkateswaran. March 12, 2011
------

Sankar Venkateswaran is a theatre artist, musician and crosscultural practitioner. He is a graduate of Calicut University School of Drama & Fine Arts, Kerala and the Theatre Training and Research Programme (TTRP), Singapore, and has appeared in productions in Europe, Japan and South East Asia. Residecy at: Rote Fabrik Zürich 
Date: 7 January - 31 March 2011