About this Event
Join us for an evening of dialogue and performance as part of a new collaboration performance, labour and automation (pl+a), between researchers and theatre workers from Bangladesh, India and the UK who will be sharing their collective reflections on the work they have been doing together during a one-week residency at Queen Mary University of London.
The evening will culminate with a performance, Drohita by Shruti Ghosh.
Participants in the study residency include: Trina Nileena Banerjee (Centre for Studies in Social Sciences, Calcutta), Sudhanva Deshpande (Jana Natya Manch), Bishnupriya Dutt (Jawaharlal Nehru University), Shruti Ghosh, Moloyashree Hashmi (Jana Natya Manch), Mohammad Tareq Hassan (University of Dhaka), Aparna Mahiyaria (Exeter University), Nicholas Ridout (QMUL), Souradeep Roy (QMUL) and Orlagh Woods.
Most theatre is made by workers. Theatre is work, done in front of an audience. Theatre can reflect upon, represent, and even intervene in the working lives of others. This project explores how theatre and performance workers engage with the lives of other workers and how their own work might intersect and overlap with that of political activists and anthropologists. How might such artistic, intellectual and political work offer ways of thinking about and intervening today in workplace struggles intensified by automation?
Participants in the workshop have paid particular attention to work in the ready-made garment industry in Bangladesh and India, to changes in work-life patterns shaped by computerisation, and to the long contemporary history of theatres which seek to activate workers in response to changing labour conditions.
Performance
Drohita, the performance piece, centers around the struggles of the sweatshop workers on both sides of Bengal, particularly Bangladesh. It reflects upon the precarious living conditions and abysmal working condition of the workers which have been made worse by the pandemic and gradual closing down of several factories on both sides of Bengal. While engaging with these stories Drohita asks how to address the labouring body of the performer which is depicting stories of labour of another community and how to locate the labouring/dancing body of the performer?
Shruti Ghosh is a Kathak dancer, choreographer, teacher and independent researcher based in Kolkata, India. She is recipient of Arts Research Grant from Indian Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore (2022-2023) and is currently working on her research project on cultural memory of exile and identity formation in Metiabruz, Kolkata in relation to contemporary history of Kathak dance. She was a former dance teacher and performer at Indian Cultural Centre, Embassy of India, Kazakhstan (2018-2020). Shruti has collaborated with dance, music, film and theatre artists and performed in London, Sydney, Melbourne, Canberra, different parts of Kazakhstan and India. She has published (in English and Bangla) in many journals and anthologies on film music and film dance. Currently, she is also performing three new solo pieces Khol Do (on partition of India), Juddho Keno hoi (anti-war piece) and Barnoporichoy (stories of women emancipation) in different parts of India.
performance, labour and automation is funded by the UKRI's International Science Partnerships Fund.
Photo credit: Rajdeep Roy
Event Venue & Nearby Stays
Pinter Studio, 339 Mile End Road, London, United Kingdom
USD 0.00
