By Anjana Ghonasgi
It has been a while since I have watched a live performance and walked out awed and speechless and with a head full of questions. MAN-EATER, a live performance piece created by Gia Singh Arora & Noni-Mouse had that effect. The performance is built around a coming-of-age narrative of a young woman before, during and after her first sexual encounter and is structured around the translated works of erotic poetry from ancient India - The Cane Groves of Narmada River by Andrew Schelling.
MAN-EATER - the name itself is bold, as is the piece. It is immersive, full of raw emotion and raw performance that draws you in. It explores female sexuality and themes of desire, pleasure and intimacy with the layered complexity that it requires. The piece is seamlessly tied using movement, music, poetry and various prop elements. Every movement, every musical note, every line of poetry has a clear intention with a story to tell.
"Desire in women, it's such a question mark. What do you desire? Why do you desire it? How do you desire it? When it comes to you, you don't want it. Then you don't want it like that but you want it a certain other way. You don't want to say it but want it to be understood. There is just so much with the subject of desire and women that fascinates me." - Gia.
Red is a colour that is used and explored through different elements throughout the performance - a red half sari, a red lipstick, alta. Red, a colour associated with passion, love and sringar. My grandmother once told me good girls don't wear red lipstick, only naughty ones do. My own mother would never wear a bold red lipstick although she never stopped me from wearing one.
In my conversation with Gia, I really connected with her on how it is easier to showcase desire and enjoy your sexuality as a performer in front of a group of people than in private with ourselves. Being a young woman…wait! Are millennials still considered young? Anyway, being a woman living in Mumbai, I was surprised to find myself uncomfortable sitting in the audience watching this performance unfold. Openly witnessing a sensorial performance and display of female sexuality - something in me moved uneasily. And that was the internalised voice of society and how it views this concept. I chose to sit with that discomfort, enjoyed it even. You can't explore desire in the context of sexuality without touching upon shame. And this performance did that in the most beautiful way. It showed shame as it is, without glorifying or giving it special attention. It was tied directly into the story of this young woman and what she was feeling. Gia's expressive performance and uniquely crafted movement vocabulary using elements of Indian classical dance and somatics portrayed that flawlessly.
I am a firm believer that sound or music can make or break a performance. The music of this piece has its own, stand-alone place. Noni-Mouse is an absolute genius. The beautiful part about this performance was that the music was a partner in telling the story. In fact, if I listened to just the music, it would tell its own version of this story solely. In my conversation with Noni-Mouse she mentions, "the ghazal inspired lyrics were definitely an inspiration from the original poetry book. We wanted to find different ways of emoting within the narrative, and this was one that struck a chord." The music production gave the space a sacred, intimate feel that immediately let the audience know we are about to witness something beautiful.
The best part of this performance was that it didn't have any message or moral at the end. It just sort of left you bare. If you were to look at your reflection in a mirror right after, you would see yourself in entirety, through and through. And what was reflected back to me was someone who still has a ways to go to explore her own desires.
Catch the next performance of MAN-EATER on 4th March at Conscious Culture Festival.
MAN-EATER
Co-created by Gia Singh Arora and Noni-Mouse
Music: Noni-Mouse (she)
Performance: Gia Singh Arora (she)
Lights & Production: Vinit Patil (he)
About the artists :
Gia has developed a practice that embraces hybridity and combines her roles of performer, filmmaker, somatic practitioner, and educator. Her need to craft ways of ‘experiencing’ forms the basis of her engagement with art as a sensory, ephemeral and physical experience. Her performance work is now an amalgamation of theatre, movement, dance and performance art. Her latest work, The Ghost Dance was commissioned by Art and Charlie for Mumbai Gallery Weekend.
Radhapriya Gupta aka Noni-Mouse is a left-of-centre sound artist and experimental composer, based in Mumbai, India. Always pushing the envelope with her craft, she loves deep-diving into different ends of music, sound and art, and exploring different facets of it. With curation, storytelling and synthesis of ideas at the centre of her practice, Radhapriya likes taking inspiration from the most unexpected things, and creating sonic translations of the same.
