Bring me the Smell of Earth & I will bring you the Taste of Love

Performance at Borella Bus Stop, Colombo, Srilanka, March 16th, 2015, Performed for First International Performance Festival.

“MAN is born free; and everywhere he is in chains. One thinks himself as the master of others, and still remains a greater slave than they." 
- Jean-Jacques Rousseau, the Social Contract 1762.

When we go to a new place, usually we try to connect and understand people through their culture, customs, habits and also behavior and we try to mingle with them to become one among them. Constant thinking to become part of that land and be accepted or not, with all the barriers like Racism, Ethnic issues, Religious and political aspect involved. Taking que from this thought, did this performance an interactive one where audience were requested to give me small piece of earth in a sack bag or by applying clay on my body. Symbolically giving a small piece of earth, The act also denoted welcome gesture for me in the country.

The entire performance was an act that involved long ritualistic process, with more space to understand, accommodate, tolerate and respect other cultures and share the whole world without boundaries and rules that are man made. This performance brought out concerns in a larger context; also raised questions on various issues related to collective identity, the construction of urban spaces which are the result of rapid development of larger cities and reducing rural space. The urban cities lead to building our identity in more multicultural platform, where it leads to hybridization and mix of different cultures. Overall when we talk about the identity of an individual in larger context it becomes complex and stays as collective identity from this various sources. 

The identity is formed by adding all this collective memories and become one come complex format of collective identity of individual. The views are also drawn from vantage point of cultural landscape one come from. So, for me this performance will mark an important platform for a cultural dialogue and also understanding and making space for different cultures in International platform. In this performance I have tried to blend various elements of both, cultures and essence of the place I come from and also adapting Sinhala Culture, by incorporating voice modulation of Sinhala language and collaborating with students to their voice in local language them in my work, S o I could make blending of cultures in totality.

Dimple B Shah
2015

Karmic Connection II

Performance, at “TENT” (an old house), Kolkata, 28th Jan 2015.

“We are here to awaken from the illusion of our separateness”

Connecting audience and myself through an act of Karma (doing), I was netting and establishing bond by weaving through golden thread and also metaphorically bringing the connection which highlights only on special occasion usually it is blurred in illusion. 

The act of myself marking with nail and hammer and creating a monotonous sound on bronze sheet was an act symbolizing "the act Performing Karma", like a goldsmith making mark and mapping connection. Both the sound of weaving and marking sound synchronized, allowing me to build my connection through the golden thread in a room of a workshop, where everybody in the room transcends to feeling of oneness even they became part of the act, The Karma, by moving their hands which is tied up with thread and where they make movement with the sound of my hammering and weaving sound.

Dimple B Shah

2015

Paradde to the "TIMES OF YORE"

Performance, a walk around the College Street, 26 Jan, Kolkata, 2015

Making connection to historical aspects of Kolkata was the key idea in this performance. The city Kolkata is one of the oldest city, ruled by East India Company, the buildings are as old as 150 to 200 hundred years and every stone of the city embedded with history. In this performance I viewed the city through an archaeological perspective and performed as archaeologist who want to collect all the evidences of historical Kolkata and in the process becoming like a socialist who is bringing the essence of city in the present times, who also stands for protest and revolution every time.

This performance was collaborated with common people as audience, who had their part of intervention, when they lend their voice for the performance, shouting "Ey amaar Kolkata, ey tomaar Kolkata" thereby reclaiming their own city.

Dimple B Shah

2015

In search of antidote

Performance at Rama Anjaneya Temple Venue, Hanumanth Nagar, 21st Dec 2014.

“In ”Search of Antidote” was a performance involved ritualistic act through body actions, to heal body and mind of the audience and myself. This performance was conceived keeping in my mind present social situation prevailing around the globe, enormous unrest among people around us. In this performance my main concern was to bring into notice various social issues that is against humanity and which provokes us for an action against widespread injustice. We are a social being and we confront number of social issues on everyday basis from corruption, injustice to crimes against women and communal violence. 

It looks like that we are constantly consuming these pressures/tensions of the society, to fight with emotional and mental level and we keep absorbing so called negativity, like a sponge which accumulates in our system like carbon of the earth. If we don’t burn out these negative energies into positive energy it will totally take us to the depth of its darkness. My performance was an attempt of a ritualistic act bringing cathartic effect on body and mind and cleanse purify body mind and our space and hope for a peaceful future by taking out, ejecting all the negativity through body actions, converting negative emotions/ forces into positivity.

The act was a ritualistic process both for my audience and me. My audience also vent out there emotions which were negative imprints of the society by impregnate the cow dung with negative words/emotions written on them which was given back to artists, artists then ritualistically tried to convert all those negativity into positive energy. The performance was a combined effort of my audience and me venting out negative thoughts and build positive hope for a positive social changes. This performance was incomplete without audience participation.

Dimple B Shah
2014

Small Piece of Earth in my Pocket

Performance at Swamy Vivekananda Metro, Bangalore, June 10th, 2014.

This was my last performance for month of June and for Live Art Lab, 2014. Concept of event was ‘Warp-Woof-Weft' at Vivekananda Metro, Bangalore. The central focus for the event was on the subject of art and craft. The location for the performance was Bangalore Santhe, a place created by Bangalore Metro to promote handicraft and small arts and crafts. We chose to work here keeping in mind the fact that crafty elements is missing in contemporary art scene, and generally artists hire local craftsmen to create their work instead of creating themselves. 

My performance for the event was titled “Small Piece of Earth in my Pocket”; I intended to focus on two aspects, one rapid development of urban space leading to constant demand for more land leading to deforestation and other harmful affects to the nature in large and the other aspect is constant shift of lifestyle that is inclined to fast-food culture and other unhealthy practices that is the root cause of all health issues and indirectly effecting the economy and farmers are dragged into this vicious trap. 

I used jute for costume and prepared the whole costume by myself to give personal touch and also involve my craftsmanship. I made number of pockets on the sack to keep small cups that had Ragi sprouts (Finger Millet) , since Ragi (Finger Millet) is the most indigenous crop, also blend of organic food and using jute was intentional since Jute crop is suggested to help conserve deforestation and jute in performance is also metaphorical playing same role. During the performance I tried to merge myself with plants and trees that were grown around on the pillars of metro, on the lane and then I dragged a Banana Tree which was already damaged, paid tribute to the dead tree with flower and then I walked to each audience and distributed cup of (Finger Millet) Ragi sprout that I had on my costume and later we also planted some in the garden there.

Dimple B Shah
2014

Goddesses from Common Grounds

A 4km group walk of students & local working ladies, Performance at Basavanagudi, 8th June, 2014.

This performance was Basavanagudi Live Art Projcects last performance and a major intervention. It was basically my reaction to harassment done to one women near Gavigangadesvara Temple. It was there in the news for quite long. One Auto driver harassed a group of women, though this place is much safe for women still one or two such incident happens. Recently crime rates have increased in this vecinity, this triggered the thought of doing a silent walk where household working women and college student would participate, it is basically to gain respect and dignity for women. 

The work was titled Goddesses from Common Grounds a group walk. In todays day to day life there is a never ending concern on safety of women in society, this performance is a small act to Reframe issues of women of all strata, the concern is same to gain importance of their dignity safety and respect.

Dimple B Shah
2014

Time Lapse - Reliving Past

Interactive Performative Installation & Perofrmance on the footpath, next to Ramkrishna Math, Basavanagudi, 7th June 2014.

A generation which ignores history has no past: and no future. 
- Lazarus Long, from the works of Robert Heinlein

Through this interactive performance audiance had a glimpse of bygone era, the sense of past, a journey and reflection of time to relive the time itself. This was done by showing small still moving images in a kaleidoscope box the old medium to reach out people in the present time. This medium was very popularly used in olden days, commonly used in villages, it is like bringing the past in to present.

The old indigenous kaleidoscope was designed in a new way, film positives of images from the past, where people could get the glimpse of that period. Through this interactive per formative installation. This performance was targeted all kinds of audience’s from School Children, Auto Drivers, Common people, Old people and Women. 

This performance is a journey in itself for me since from the time of hunting for old photos online and reading about them and learning more things which I didn’t knew like the history of National College, the first Abala Ashram and going through life of great personalities was indeed a great learning and inspiration for me. One really feels proud living in such a great place with so much history. The outer body of Kaleidoscope was mix of old imagery and flower print, I had also used custom made helmet which could display multiple portraits at a time, like turning pages of history book, with images of important people get registered and when you remember they pop up in our minds and I stood there wearing that helmet representing all those forgotten faces, it was very a tricky design to execute though, but this was a perfect match to represent all by one unknown.

The costume I had chosen again had to reflect time the pata-patti pant which was used in earlier days only few old people use it and you really need to hunt shop which sell this particular or you need to buy material and get it stitched. I went to shop where this man from past 60 year makes this and I got the costume made for this performance for my size and shop person also shared that now only few old people come there buy this since it no more popular now the track pants are popular.

Dimple B Shah

2014