EF_FEMININITY: This Indo-Swiss ‘documentary dance performance’ mixes elements of theatre and journalism to probe gender notions
Shows coming up at Shoonya — Centre for Art and Somatic Practices in Bengaluru on February 11 and 12, followed by more performances in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata. Here’s an interview with creator Marcel Schwald and performer Diya Naidu…
By Reema Gowalla
A curious piece of ‘documentary dance performance’ is ready to take the stage, as a gender-diverse team of theatre-makers and choreographers from Switzerland and India have joined forces to craft and curate EF_FEMININITY — trio version. Created by Marcel Schwald and Chris Leuenberger, featuring Diya Naidu, Shilok Mukkati, Living Smile Vidya and Chris, the piece probes the concepts of femininity, hyper-femininity and effeminacy, asking questions like, ‘What is femininity and who owns it?’ Along the way, it also explores assumptions around gender, bodies, dance and their countries of origin. Following its opening shows at Bengaluru’s Shoonya — Centre for Art and Somatic Practices on February 11 and 12, EF_FEMININITY will travel to Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata.
Chris and Marcel’s genre-splicing artistic practice interweaves elements of journalism and dance, spotlighting personal stories via movement and text. As kids, they both wanted to be girls. They are still quite fascinated by the ways and wiles attributed to the female gender — especially when these behaviours are practiced as a means to self-empowerment and as a political statement. Meanwhile, Diya, Shilok and Vidya have been fighting for the recognition of their own femininities. Through this project, which also includes workshops, they tell stories that are rooted in different assumptions about gender.
EF_FEMININITY is a collaboration between Sandbox Collective and Sabine Jud, supported by Pro Helvetia New Delhi, in association with Pro Helvetia Schweizer Kulturstiftung, Fachausschuss Tanz and Theater BS/BL, Kultur Stadt Bern and Swisslos — Kultur Kanton Bern. Ahead of the Bengaluru shows, Marcel (M) and Diya (D) engaged in a quick conversation with TheatreRoom, sharing insights into the collaboration, the relevance of the piece in today’s geopolitical scenario, and more. Excerpts:
Q. What do you mean by the term ‘documentary dance performance’?
M. Although Chris is primarily a choreographer, he has always used text in his pieces. Meanwhile, he has also been working on his own biography. On the other hand, I come from theatre and text work. In recent times, there’s been a big wave of documentary theatre coming up in Switzerland, Europe and the rest of the world. Thus, we started calling these ‘documentary dance pieces’. Earlier, most documentary theatre pieces were without dance. Then, there were people who did dance pieces with text or even worked with the biographies of eminent dancers in Europe’s conceptual dance circuit. For us, the term ‘documentary dance’ was helpful in creating a good balance between the ‘speaking parts’ and ‘dancing parts’. Also, we don’t feel the need to conform too much to the theatre rules with the ‘speaking’. But we can instead take the ‘speaking’ from a performative perspective or from a point where dancers are comfortable to talk and use text at the same time.
Q. How has the concept of journalism helped in crafting the piece?
M. Well, the journalistic part is a bit more about the way we interview people while creating the piece. We focus on conversations with people and also try to find stories in biographies that would make a journalistic piece — for instance, a radio feature or a portrait. Journalism is inspiring to us in terms of form, which we then transpose to the theatre. We could take an interview, a portrait or even a podcast as a theatrical form. Shilok, one of our collaborators on the piece, was a radio journalist at the time when we were creating the piece, and that was definitely very helpful for us. We were really interested in jingles and how you snip-snap information to short pieces.
Q. There are mentions of ‘self-empowerment’ and ‘making a political statement’ in the piece. How would you contextualise that especially at a time when the newly elected US President Donald Trump is making rapid changes to diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI) policies, potentially impacting geopolitics?
M. I was just thinking of adding a few quotes to the leaflet for the show, and it’s coincidental that we are talking about it now. So, the thing about these policy changes have suddenly become more relevant now than when we were creating the piece. Earlier, we were quite hopeful that things would become better for everyone — for queer people, for feminists, as well as for women in general. We even expected men to be more free and not restricted to specific roles or behaviours, while there would be lesser mental and physical violence against them. But unfortunately, at this point, even men seem to be under pressure to conform to Trump and follow his proposals for society.
Keeping the importance of democracy in mind, I was thinking of putting a quote on the evening leaflet. Something like, Martin Luther King Jr’s famous line, “No one is free until all of us are free.” He’s also an American. So, it becomes quite ironic today. Then, I was also thinking of a quote by Franziska Schutzbach, a feminist from my hometown Basel [Switzerland]. She’s quite popular across the German-speaking areas in the country. I think also her books are starting to be translated into other languages. She says something that roughly means, “Women get freedom from other women. Or they don’t get it at all.”
I think Franziska’s quote makes a lot of sense. She highlights the fact that how women are starting to give themselves the space, because no one else is going to give it to them. On the other hand, it’s also very important to have a male voice speaking about freedom. I feel there needs to be some shockwave going through people assigned male at birth to really support this and take a stand against other people assigned male at birth who just think this is the moment to grasp unauthorised advantages and behave like bandits. At this point of time, it’s important to not be silenced and not give any idea that what Trump is doing is anything close to acceptable.
Q. You’re often at the helm of a project, but here you’re more of a collaborator and performer. Tell us about it…
D. I have actually experienced a lot of freedom in this project, because I’m not a maker here, but a collaborator and performer. Although Marcel and Chris are the director and the choreographer of EF_FEMININITY, they’ve found a way to work where they are not directing and imposing, yet structuring and driving the bus. That’s actually a luxury for me, because I am constantly in a position where I’m making work and performing in it too. In fact, lately I have removed myself from most of my own choreography, because it’s just too difficult to keep the balance sometimes. So I choreograph on other bodies or I’m happy to be in a piece where someone else directs me.
Q. How would you describe the experience and relevance of being part of EF_FEMININITY?
D. Between 2014 and 2019, I had constantly worked on crafting and devising my solo piece, called the Red Dress Waali Ladki. That experience profoundly educated me in building my perspective of gender. I had a more cis, English-speaking gender lens. Cut to EF_FEMININITY, spending time with this team and looking at gender via their life experiences. I can bring it down to race, caste, class, language and privilege (or the lack of it). But it’s beyond those labels.
I often say that rehearsal is one of the most intimate spaces you can be in, as opposed to a conference. If I had attended a conference where Marcel, Vidya, Shilok and Chris were just giving a lecture demonstration, I don’t think I would have been educated in what is going on in their bodies, lives and their communities in the way that I did while we were on the rehearsal floor. Here, we were sweating, bleeding, crying and laughing together. Even if there was a conflict, we were resolving that among each other. For me, this has really been a very special experience.
Of course, it wasn’t as simple as ‘oh, you’re the performer, so just show up and perform’. EF_FEMININITY has always felt like my piece. There are actually excerpts of some of my work and journey here. It’s always felt like I have a lot of ownership over this piece, even though I’m not the director.
This project has given me a lot of agency and education. I have been in the field of movement arts and choreography since a very early age. I’ve been on the road, in studios, touring, training, being a student and a teacher — spending up to 13 hours a day in practice or rehearsals. So for me, this is that point where you start to value the people you work with; whom you have an exciting professional interaction with, who reflects and challenges your own principles and notions and politics; and also who go beyond the professional relationship, proposed by capitalism. That’s been very valuable to me. Performances are really important. They are a place where we can offer our research and our coming together. But it’s really the journey, the coming together and understanding of different things that have happened in different people’s lives over the past five-six years that we’ve been in.
The piece is also guided by Joshua Muyiwa, Kirtana Kumar, Anne Haug, Lukas Acton, with dramaturgical advice from Merel Heering. Costume for the performance is taken care of by Salome Egger, music is by Thomas Jeker, while Thomas Kohler is in charge of lights and technical direction.
Catch shows of EF_FEMININITY at Shoonya — Centre for Art and Somatic Practices in Bengaluru on February 11 and 12 (7pm); at OddBird Theatre in Delhi on February 15 and 16 (7pm); at Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan in Chennai on February 21 (6pm); and at Alipore Museum in Kolkata on February 22 (7pm). Entry free!
