The rehearsals for "Boy with a suitcase" have started on 15th febuary in a quiet and beautiful place called Nritygram - a village built for classical dancers in the 80s. The only dance form still praticed here is Odissi and a wonderful and amazing group of women rehearse here - an inspiration to every performer who has ever seen them.
We are all staying in the newly built "arts lab", a simple and sturdy building with 8 rooms that hosts two people each and and open kitchen and sitting area. The sounds of nature - crickets, birds and silence - accompany us through the day and it becomes hard to imagine that Bangalore is just an hour away.
Currently we are 16 people, 7 performers and musicians, two set designers, two costume designers, dramaturgs, assistants, all crawling out of bed at 6.30 in the morning to start the day with meditation, yoga, core work and biomechanics or - running through the fields beyond Nrityagram.
There is one thing that is valued by some of us with devotion - our wireless modem.
After and between rehearsals the virtual generation in hooked onto their electronic devices. But sometimes the modem does not work and despair sets in.
Another thing valued highly are the pickles that June has made, who lives here half of the year. Lemon, mango, tomato pickles, sour and salty and a happy maker for some of us.
We are getting into the play by reading and telling stories. Sindbads's stories that the main charatcer Naz refers to in the play and first person accounts of refugee children.Stage designer Credi and Sridar work hard on the woden elements for the set - Credis design does not quite translate into the wood reality in India, so the wooden parts have to be strenghtend and covered with light cloth, which will be dirtied over the rehearsal period with the foot prints of red earth.
Today, we started with the actual text of the play...
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