Maitreyee Joshi’s GOAT in Chennai explores the space before performance begins

What if the real performance is not on stage, but happening in the pause before the lights and the stage decide who you are supposed to be? That is the slightly distorted space GOAT (Grotesque of All Time) walks into. This weekend, choreographer and performer Maitreyee Joshi brings a solo that refuses to decide what it is, dance or theatre, monologue or movement, confession or performance. Maybe all of it. Maybe none.

Maitreyee Joshi’s GOAT blurs dance and theatre in Chennai

“I had the idea of Grotesque, who was already in the room with me,” Maitreyee says, describing how the piece began. “I went into hours and hours of improvisation to create what I would call the Grotesque body language.”

The show begins backstage. Not metaphorically. Actually backstage. That liminal space is not accidental. “The backstage is a very raw, vulnerable and honest space,” she says. “A performer is in a very different state of mind. You are in a state of prep, care, anxiety… this is like a prelude.”

But GOAT also does something else with this space. It turns it into an homage. “They are unsung heroes,” she says, speaking of lighting, sound, and set crews. “The fact that they’re unseen means the show is going really well. You don’t want to see a crew person running onto the stage to set up your lights, though that is very much the proposition of my show.”

Then comes the other central tension, greatness versus mediocrity. “Being mediocre at something is often the first sign that you might be on the path to being great at it,” she says, almost questioning the idea even as she puts it out there.

And mediocrity? It is not rejected here. “Mediocrity is a perceived state,” she says. “What could be considered a great achievement for someone can be looked at as mediocre by someone else. So where is the scale? What is the value system here?”

It’s a question that lingers. Because if the scale itself is unstable, why is mediocrity treated as failure? “This measurement itself is very skewed,” she continues. “It doesn’t work for everyone. At 33, I still don’t have an answer for why mediocre gets such a bad rep,” she says. Then pauses. “But maybe we can cut it some slack.”

In Grotesque of All Time, body and identity blur as the performer shifts between Mediocre Mai and multiple shades of the grotesque, confident, shy, devious, and even deliberately “ugly”. Instead of locating this tension in the mind, the work channels it through the body, using movement to express distortion, discomfort, and inner conflict.

There is a moment she describes where the audience is used as a mirror. Not metaphorically. Directly. “Instead of having a mirror in front of me, I use them as mirrors,” she says. “That’s when a big shift happens, from observation to recognition,” she concludes.

Rs 300 onwards. On April 19, 7 pm. At Medai - The Stage, Alwarpet.

Email: shivani@newindianexpress.com
X: @ShivaniIllakiya

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