Final Day: Cliches, SUNOH phrases, brainstorms

This morning we came up with a slightly revised show order for the trio version of the show (supporting material in gray):

Skype/letter

Courtesan clichés

Ranri

SUNOH BN in the round

Tigress/shupurnaka/Dissembodied

Uma stories

SUNOH vocal chakradar

Cyn logomotion

Tonsil/voice

I listen-I take you in

SKYPE Sandra/Hidden Tamarind

SUNOH-cliche phrases

Skin remix

We also worked on developing the (courtesan) cliches and the SUNOH phrases.
CLICHES:
We came up with some new cliches about women that directly relate to the non-courtesan stories in the show:
exotic native
helpless victim
temple dancer
geeky professor
intimidating brainiac
powerful and refined
self-flagellating
uninhibited girl child
subdued, self-conscious girl
exotic strip/lap dancer
pack of girlfriends, clique
emblem of ancient spiritual tradition
feminine Indian-ness
diva
revered guru
reverent disciple
cutesy lollipop girl

Each of us then choreographed one leg of the chakradar, "tat tat ta tuka," that is used in Cyber Chat. We mixed movement based on these cliches with movement from the original courtesan metaphrase. Then we glued our separate phrases together (Cyn, Anj, then Shy) to make the complete chakradar tora: password "cliche"

Cliche chakradar -group from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.


SUNOH phrases:
-Cyn and Shy learned the complete version of Anj's contemporary SUNOH phrase.
password: "sunoh"

Sunoh phrase contemporary from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
-We learned Shy's BN SUNOH phrase. As further future expansion, we're interested in exploring doing Shy's Bharatnatyam SUNOH phrase in the round (rhythmically) and in Anj creating rhythmic variations on Shy's BN SUNOH phrase. We thought this section might possibly serve as transitional material between Ranri and Anj's Tigress story.
-We worked with Cyn's SUNOH text to the Cyber Chat chakradar tora. We divided the phrases among the 3 of us and came up with the following structure: (1) pedestrian (2) with gesture (3) in unison. For further renditions, we thought the center phrase might be interesting done as bols instead of the English words.
Password: "sunoh"

Sunoh chakradar vocal from Shyamala Moorty on Vimeo.
We thought that perhaps we could use this rhythmic text between Uma^3 and Cyn's Logomotion. We would sit as a group of women braiding the cloth worn as Uma's costume into Cyn's braid. After a bit of silence we slip into the chakradar tora, first quietly then building: this establishes the tala. We move into unison drut theka; Anj becomes my accompanist reciting the syllables, Shy sits in the audience keeping time, Cyn puts on her wig.

Ranri idea:
Anj had an idea of another way to embody Rasulan bai's struggle, as we have been feeling (and audiences have noted) that it is a bit too similar to My Silent Cry. She thought that the piece could start with Cyn already as a courtesan, and Shy as Veena Oldenburg coming in to study the courtesans. Cyn would tell Rasulanbai's story as a flashback. During the struggle scene, it could transform from the struggle with the cloth into a danced version of anger and resistance to the beating that draws more clearly on kathak movement, footwork, and rhythmic structures: thus the transition would occur through movement rather than through narrative. When the cloth comes off, she will be dressed as a courtesan rather than in the white blouse and petticoat. If the story is not yet clear, after dancing perhaps Cyn could tell the last part of her story using direct quotes from the fieldwork, and end with asking Veena the question: "Tell me, sister, what would you have done?" Otherwise she could simply end by asking the question.
Here's a rough idea of the kathak ending.  We haven't mapped out the flashback part yet.  apologies for the bad projection and lighting.  Shyamala couldn't cap the projector and do the lights and the camera all at once so the screen begins and ends with the computer rather then with no projection.
password:  "tell me"

Ranri Kathak end from Post Natyam Collective on Vimeo.
http://vimeo.com/18936094

TIGRESS brainstorm:
This brainstorm would tell the story about a guy in college, whom she had had a crush on, who suddenly became sexually interested in Anj after seeing her perform BN. Anj would do a voice-over in a formal Bharatnatyam fashion: "The next item...." At first it would seem like a standard description of an item, but it would actually turn out that it was describing Anj's story. The voice-over would continue throughout the course of the piece.

The stage would be split into two with the long cloth dividing it into stage left and right areas. Anj would be stage right in full BN regalia, doing a mixture of her varnam and Shurpanaka material to Carnatic music. On stage left would be the man's fantasy of Anjali using dissembodied material to bad Indian fusion music. Cyn would play the part of the man, and Shy the exoticized object of his fantasy. The scene would play on one side, freeze and play on the others, switching a few times between reality and fantasy.

At the end of Anj's varnam, Shy would exit. Cyn and Anj would turn to face each other, drawing on the trope of the heroine and her lord, spread out the cloth and get under the bedcovers. At this point the music would shift into a distorted mix of the Carnatic and fusion musical styles. The cloth would start getting tossed around as if in a love scene, with bits of BN ornament and costume getting thrown out, until the man says, "No, don't take those off!" After awhile he'd come up for air and say to the audience, "She's an Indian tigress!" then leave her, sated. The sound would then disappear into silence, and Anj would emerge from under the covers in a "real" moment, horrified.

Finally Cynthia brainstormed ways to expand the cliches about women:
*choreograph to the other rhythm in the skype call…

(or other rhythms)

can play with doing it cross rhythmicall

*Integrating the words somehow (in rhythm?)

*big pile of costumes and props: either audience dress us, or they get dressed up, or have the audience label us (index cards)

*collecting their clichés in intermission then performing them

*black slips as a way to tie into skin remix

pleasure of embodiying them needs to be investigated (write about it, embody it?)

*how find underbelly and turn it around…one at a time gets stuck in a particular phrase that they’re grappling with, response words Carole asked us for might be a way to investigate this.

*teach a bunch of audience members some of the cliché movmenet with the rest of the audience shouting them out.