Nupur Saraswat and Kate Black-Regan have a very simple agenda for their upcoming performance, Two Sanskari Girls. As Nupur puts it, “I want a 65-year-old woman to come to this show and realise how many of her actions in life have been in the form of an apology. I want a 14-year-old boy to come to the show to realise how much more freedom he has than his sister.” The performance is a spoken-word tale of two women from opposite sides of the world, told through theatrical poetry, song and movement.
Together, Nupur and Kate are Beasts of Bed and Battlefield, an artistes’ collective. Twenty-two-year-old Nupur is a Singapore-based theatre performer while Kate is a poet and art therapist originally from Philadelphia. “Two Sanskari Girls was in a way born out of our first show, The Fierce in My Family. This show has been in the process for the past couple of months. We’re adding new elements, new pieces, new performers, and new energy to the upcoming performance,” Kate tells us.
Space antics
The show itself does not follow a linear plot but rather moves between spoken word to dance to song and satire. The one-hour performance wants to redefine exactly what “sanskar”, or traditional values are for the modern woman, and how much pressure and expectations they create. They want to topple the age-old formula of what is the right way to raise your daughter and bring perspectives from two different cultures on the subject.
The main them, of course, is feminism. “One of the issues we tackle is choice,” Nupur explains, adding, “In an ideal world, a woman will be able to make the choice she wants most, not dictated by society, whether it be about clothes or career.” The show will also have cameos from activists and artistes such as radio jockey Shilok Mukkati who will present her Kannada poetry and Karunya Srinivasan, MMA fighter and Bharatnatyam dancer. The duo takes the show to Europe next, with performances in Berlin, Paris and Amsterdam over the next two months.
July 7, 7 pm. At Shoonya, Lalbagh Road. Tickets (Rs. 200) on instamojo.com