By SAMHITA BAROOAH

Theatre is both a process and a product. It emerges with constant improvisation and engagement with the spectators or rather spect'actors'. This theatre performance titled 'Almost Antigone' was indeed a twist in its own fascinating way. This was recently described as a performed conversation by Papari Medhi on February 16, 2023 at the Multipurpose Hall of Department of Social Work, Tezpur University. Noted theatre activist and educator Papari Medhi was a resource person for the 3 day theatre workshop for students of Masters in Social Work between February 15 to 17, 2023. After 2 days of rigorous engagement with the batch of 22 students, Papari Medhi decided to showcase her signature style of performed conversation with a mixed audience from diverse disciplines of both students and faculty of Tezpur University. Social work students are trained from a multi-disciplinary approach through theories and practice within the classrooms and the field but this performance literally exposed their sensibilities to a completely different level of knowledge sharing. All the perspectives of participation, power, dialogue, communication, transgressing across language barriers and engaging with the process of resistance and reflection creatively built an atmosphere of learning through doing. 

Papari Medhi used space in a corner of a large room in such a way that people were given choices of floor, benches and chairs to sit. Her own set was a chair and props included a bag, one black stole and a tambourine. She used her body and voice to reach out to the audience around her. She wove the tales of fantasy and reality in such an intriguing way that some people in the audience kept on clapping after every act she showed. She dismantled all the inhibitions of power centres, storytelling and left the audience baffled with endless dilemmas of beginning and ending. In fact, conversations kept on flowing in during the performance and also beyond the performance. Papari's discourse to address the contemporary issues of being for or against the grain of the world came through brilliantly. Her own feminist positionality from a subaltern context of being hindidhekemiya created the context of the performative conversation. Use of the body, a piece of cloth to depict the gendered assertion of power and influence, voice modulation according to the audience and involving the audience throughout the performance were some of the key features of the act. Within a span of three days she could connect with the students of social work effectively and brought out the best in them. Papari Medhi's art form is rooted in the grounded experiences of the region, transgressing across centuries of epistemological discourses in Greek, Indian and South Asian mythology and cultural practices. Her musical couplet in Hindi, 'Mitti kahe kumhar se… (how the soil gets moulded by the potter and the potter getting moulded by the humble soil) reminded one about Augusto Boal's theatre of the oppressed where actors get moulded through the spect'actors'. 

Since the students have come from a post pandemic context, their collective spaces have literally died out. But this workshop enabled the students to collectivise and connect with the audience effortlessly without any inhibitions. 

All the participants of this workshop shared about their new found confidence which they might have lost in between during their school and college life. With this workshop, they bonded very closely as a class together and built their strengths collectively. This was the true essence of realizing the National Education Policy 2020 in reality from a multi disciplinary approach of building people centric skills with activities, storytelling, practice and performance both for oneself and others. Performed conversation connects the audience and performer directly. The role reversal happens, when the audience starts performing and that becomes the eureka moment for the performer. In this workshop and during her performance, Papari Medhi created that empowering space for the participants to engage or disengage with her story of 'Almost Antigone'.