So the final
step for our journey so far…
In order to start writing the final round, I started
by not only watching the assignment videos repeatedly, but also to read the
blog and the dramaturgical connections that have developed thus far. From there
I have picked up some themes which have served as keywords for me and based on
them I have come up with this current idea.
The keywords that I have gathered are – Racial
politics, Gender, Cross-dressing, Body, Commerce, Hindi Cinema (Bollywood),
political cabaret (If I am missing any please do add). The concepts that we
developed based on our research and the assignments created are – suspense and
surprise, hiding and revealing, costume and makeup. So bringing together all
these ideas and collating the images that we have generated, here is my final
round of dramaturgical connections.
The opening I see as a collection of
stills/photographs of objects that we have appeared in the assignment videos,
like matchstick, cork, bar stool, coins, necklace, saree, hat, tie, shoes, and
etc. (if there are other things we can think of to add to this list, please
do). All these images, which seem to be mismatched, come one after the other
like a flipbook and end on an image of a pair of eyes. From here we see a
series of eyes appearing on the screen, morphing one into the other. These then
finally end on Shyamala’s eye and we see khol appearing on it. Then another
sequence begins, which is like a stop motion video of different body parts being
dressed up. This leads to the make-up sequence that was proposed in the last
dramaturgical connections.
Here we however do not see any masculine clothing
appear on anyone’s body. When Cynthia works on her section of dressing up, she
could focus on a more on wearing a courtesan/tawaf like costume and jewellery.
Everyone else could work with props and costumes which reflect more of the
costumes from cabaret artistique, its bollywood version and belly dancing like
costumes and improvisations of it, which got included in cabaret performances.
So ostrich feathers, naqabs, ornaments for the head and hair, gloves, fish net
stockings etc. could be surely used. Here we could bring in the split screen
ideas that we had from dramaturgical connections from round 1 and work with
lights focused on different body parts and then the formation of a singular
dancing body(s) and individual dance sections.
I feel the last performance in this section could be
Sandra’s as her performance could lead to her saree getting stuck somewhere and
be stretched out to form a screen. From behind the animal print screen, clothes
could be thrown out to indicate the performance of a striptease. Only the
shadow/silhouette of the performer should be visible from behind the sheerness
of the saree. A pile of clothes could collect and the last one to come out
could be the bra. This might lead to the camera being turned to the sari screen
and the viewers expecting a naked female body to appear. But instead we see 3
maybe 4(depending on the number of participants) figures appearing from behind
the screen wearing men’s clothes. Here we have a split screen again and we see
all the performers wearing men’s suits and appear on screen. Each suit is
different from the other, one is like what Cynthia was wearing, the second like
the one Shyamala had – like Victor and Victoria and Sandra comes out wearing a
third. Their faces however are all hidden. Either a hat or a scarf covers them.
A common choreography could be worked out so that everyone can perform one
movement phrase in unison and the real their faces. Here, each performer
reveals something. Cynthia could reveal her have the half black face, Shyamala
her moustaches and Sandra could unbutton her shirt and reveal a bra. But this
has to lead somewhere, so Cythia’s section could lead into the choreography
phrase she has already created, Shyamala’s could also lead to the phrase she
has made in the last assignment and Sandra could create a new phrase.
I don’t have a concluding visual yet, buy like how
Shyamala drops a coin at the end, so maybe each performer could drop an object
that comments on the aspect of cabaret that they have dealt with.
