Adishakti’s
The Hare and the Tortoise
Direction, Script and Concept: Veenapani Chawla

Adishakti’s The Hare and the Tortoise is a dramatic meditation on the ethical possibilities inherent in the notion of contemporaneity. All too often our lives are overdetermined either by the past or by the future, by the strictures of tradition, on the one hand, and of progress, on the other. In this battle between the condition of nostalgia and the desire for achievement, the present is forgotten or, worse, left unthought and unconsidered. Yet it may be the case that it is only in the recurring stillness of the present, of the moment, of what is now, that we can encounter ourselves as we truly are, untrammeled by the burdens of the past or the distorting pressures of the future. So too, it may well only be in the stark integrity of the present time-----when we are not concerned about falling behind or getting ahead-----that our relationships with others achieve a new equity and companionability. Thus, being contemporary, of the time, is linked to the notion of being coeval, of the same time, or, thence, of being together in the same time, or, of keeping time together, and so on. So too, being of the present carries within itself a kin set of etymological resonances, in this case, of being present to both oneself and to others.

The Hare and the Tortoise develops its case for the importance of being contemporary through two devices. First, it explores the complex ways in which we occupy time by staging a dramatic colloquium between participants in notable inter-civilisational race-fables. The Hare and the Tortoise are the archetypal competitors who represent different ways of understanding temporality. Their race becomes the cover story for a theme, which includes other competing pairs such as Ganapati and Kartik, Ekalavya and Arjuna, Arjuna and Hamlet. Second, to help these fabulistic discussants the better to focus their arguments the play invites them all to comment upon the crisis experienced by William Shakespeare’s Hamlet; that dramatic protagonist for whom time was always so painfully out of joint.

This play was inspired by an essay written by Nolini Kanta Gupta called ‘Hamlet: A Crises of The Evolving Soul’ which touches on the similarities and difference between Arjuna and Hamlet. The production attributes the difference to different ways of knowing.

Formely the production rejects a linear narrative structure. It conveys significance through a synaesthesis of different arts- the word, the gesture, the image, the sound- each of which communicate soveriegnly in their unique way. ----Veenapani Chawla

Sources and References

Hamlet
This best-known of Shakespeare’s play’s, written sometime between 1599 and 1601, famously recounts Prince Hamlet’s struggle following a commandment from his father’s ghost to avenge his murder. The alleged murderer, Hamlet’s uncle Claudius, has since married Hamlet’s mother, Gertrude, and set himself up as the new king of Denmark. Hamlet’s baffling delay in killing Claudius in face of his father’s command has been read, variously, as the playwright’s attempt to bring new interest to the outdated revenge convention in Jacobean drama, or as the hero’s psycho-sexual paralysis provoked by his mother’s remarriage. Hamlet’s procrastination is also available to reading as a refusal to be possessed by the claims of the past and, thereto, as a disinterest in repossessing the future as the rightful heir to the throne of Denmark.

Zeno’s Paradox
Zeno’s paradoxes, commonly attributed to Zeno of Elea, are illustrations of the thinker Parminides’s doctrine that all motion is illusory. In the paradox of Achilles and the Tortoise, Achilles is in a footrace with the tortoise. Achilles allows the tortoise a head start of 100 feet. If we suppose that each racer starts running at some constant speed (one very fast and one very slow), then after some finite time Achilles will have run 100 feet, bringing him to the tortoise's starting point. During this time, the tortoise has run a much shorter distance, for example 10 feet. It will then take Achilles some further period of time to run that distance, in which period the tortoise will advance farther; and then another period of time to reach this third point, while the tortoise moves ahead. Thus, whenever Achilles reaches somewhere the tortoise has been, he still has farther to go. Therefore, because there are an infinite number of points Achilles must reach where the tortoise has already been, he can never overtake the tortoise. The dichotomy paradox poses a set of related problems, one of which proposes that in any given race (or attempt at motion) there is no first distance to run, for any possible or finite first distance could be divided in half, and hence would not be first after all. Hence, the trip cannot even begin. The paradoxical conclusion then would be that travel over any finite distance can neither be completed nor begun. In similar vein, the arrow paradox states that for motion to be occurring, an object must change the position which it occupies. Zeno gives an example of an arrow in flight. He states that in any one instant of time, for the arrow to be moving it must either move to where it is, or it must move to where it is not. It cannot move to where it is not, because this is a single instant, and it cannot move to where it is because it is already there. In other words, in any instant of time there is no motion occurring, because an instant is a snapshot. Therefore, if it cannot move in a single instant it cannot move in any instant, making motion itself impossible.

Eklavya and Arjuna
Characters from the Mahabharata, Ekalavya and Arjuna both study archery from the famed guru Dronacharya. A prince of the low-caste Nishadha tribe, Ekalavya is eventually rejected by Drona. Yet, continuing to teach himself in the presence of a clay-image of his teacher, he soon surpasses the skill of Arjuna, Drona’s favorite and most distinguished disciple; being able to shoot seven arrows simulataneously to reach their target instantly. Provoked to unjust rivalry Arjuna inveigles Drona to intercede, and upon the latter’s command Eklavya severs his right thumb as gurudakshina. In one reading Eklavya’s complex knowledge of temporality allows the loss of his thumb to become the very condition of possibility for an extension in capacity.

Ganapati and Kartik
Sons both, of the gods Siva and Parvati, they are challenged by their mother to race around the world. Whoever wins will be allowed to marry. While Kartik literally flies around the world on his relatively swift vehicle the peackock, Ganapati circles his world, his parents, on his slow mouse and wins the race. In one reading Ganapati becomes the world to know it.

Alice and the Red Queen
The Red Queen’s Race is an episode in Lewis Carroll’s Through the Looking Glass where Alice remains in the same spot whilst running furiously. Confused by her predicament Alice gently protests that running in her country usually results in getting somewhere else. Taking this as proof of cultural slowness the Red Queen extols the intricate laws of motion at work in her own country where, in her words, “it takes all the running you can do, to keep in the same place. If you want to get somewhere else, you must run at least twice as fast as that!”

Fugue
Deriving from the Latin fugere (‘to flee’) or fugare, (‘to chase’), the musical fugue is a contrapuntal composition that consists in the successive iteration in notes or voices of a theme or subject. The final entry of the subject is also the point when the music returns to its inaugural key, closing and beginning in the same instant. In a contemporary version of it the fugue could combine this traditional structure with the voices represented as"blocks". These blocks could be segments of compositions of various styles and periods (including a fugue the way Bach could write them) chasing one another and introducing a new parameter in the fugue: the compression and expansion of time due to abrupt changes of tempo.

Synopsis

Scene1: Hamlet’s crises
Scene 2: Ganapati sings about his race
Scene 3: Eklavya is playing badminton. S/he loses an arm but suffers no loss in capacity.
Scene 4: The Hare and the Tortoise race again—with the same outcome as before.
Scene 5: Arjuna loses to Eklavya, but inherits his legacy.
Scene 6: The musicians and Zeno, debate about the race through the language of the fugue.
Scene 7: Hamlet’s crises
Scene 8: Hamlet and Arjuna meet to compare notes. Hamlet seeks Arjuna’s advice.
Scene 9: Hamlet plots meticulously and then wants to opt out. The Angel of History pushes him forward.
Scene 10: Hamlet, Alice and the Red Queen.
Scene 11: Regarding those knowledge seekers who are Hares.

Cast and Credits
Direction, Script and Concept: Veenapani Chawla

Performers:
Hamlet: Vinay Kumar
Eklavya & Arjuna: Nimmy Raphel
The Hare: Arvind Rane
The Tortoise: Arjun Shankar
Ganapati: Suresh Kaliyath

Musicians:
Pascal Sieger: Saxophone, Clarinet
Suresh Kaliyath: Percussion
Arjun Shankar: Guitar
Arvind Rane: Bass Guitar
Music Composer: Pascal Sieger
Sets: Arjun Shankar: Vinay Kumar
Costumes: Uma-Upasana-Auroville
Puppets: L Rajappa, Nimy Raphel
Light Designer: Vinay Kumar
Light Operation: Anup Davies

Acknowledgements:
The India Foundation for the Arts supported this production through its New Performance Grant

The Group: Adishakti
Adishakti is a performance company engaged in the research and reanimation of traditional knowledges in theatre, dance, music, movement and craft forms -- with a view to creating a contemporary hybrid aesthetic and performance language.

Additionally Adishakti’s work and experiments cover those areas, which elliptically involve the performer and her environment. For Adishakti is driven, quite simply, by its apprehension of art/aesthetic practice as a unique bridge not only between diverse performance forms, traditions and knowledge systems but also in fact between a range of diverse realms, which are not normally, or visibly, in communication with each other.

Adishakti therefore sees itself as a unique and potentially seminal site {of transition, passage, cultural traffic} committed to the cause of cultural and creative alterity. And, as such, it recognizes and addresses complex modes of communication while preserving the “difference” of the speakers/partners in any given creative interchange.

Veenapani Chawla:
Founder, Artistic Director & Managing Trustee of Adishakti
Veenapani Chawla established Adishakti in 1981 and is also its Managing Trustee and Artistic Director. Her academic background consists of an M.A. History, Delhi University; M.A Political Philosophy, Bombay University, B. Ed., Bombay University. She has been examined by the Trinity College of Music, London, for Singing and Piano; trained with Patsy Rodenberg, the Voice Coach of the Royal Shakespeare Company in London; and was briefly in Eugenio Barba’s Odin Teatret at Holstebro, Denmark. In India she has learnt Mayurbhanj Chhau, Kalaripayattu, Koodiyattam, and Dhrupad singing.

She has directed most of Adishakti’s performances and scripted half of these. Her work has toured India as well as internationally. In 1996 her Impressions of Bhima was performed in Paris, New York (Asia Society) and at UCLA. Her Brhannala was performed at the Singapore Arts Festival, Edinburgh Festival, New York (Asia Society) and the Bonn Biennale. Ganapati was performed at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, at Mousonturm, Frankfurt and Kampnagel , Hamburg.

Since 1987 Veenapani has been engaged in research towards creating a performance methodology based on old knowledges. This methodology involves a physical craft to facilitate the actor’s vocal, bodily and psychological expression. She has been disseminating this through workshops, performances and papers at Adishakti and other national and international venues. She has also been concerned to develop a unique aesthetic for contemporary theatre, which would make the genre relevant in the time of cinema.

She has been recognized with grants from the Ford Foundation, the Charles Wallace India Trust, the Department of Culture, the Det Lange Udvalga in Denmark and the India Foundation of the Arts. In 1988, she was nominated to the Advisory Committee of the Kathak Kendra (Sangeet Natak Academy, New Delhi, India), and in 1994 was awarded an extended Senior Fellowship from the Department of Culture in New Delhi. In 1997 she was nominated by the Department of Culture as an expert in the fields of Folk, Traditional and Indigenous Arts. In 1998, she was appointed Trustee on the Board of Trustees of the National Folklore Support Centre, Chennai.

In 2006 she received a Fellowship for a Residency at Villa Waldberta, Munich. In the same year she received the Zee Astitva Award for excellence in Theatre. In January 2007 she was a speaker at the Berkshire Conference, USA; and in March 2007 she presented a paper at the International Seminar on Theatre Performance Techniques at the Department of Performing Arts and Culture Industries at the University of Leeds, UK. In November of the year she conducted a Workshop supported by the Orient Foundation in Lisbon, Portugal, on Performance Methods based on Indian Knowledges. In the same year she was appointed on the Board of Editors for "Theatre, Dance and Performance Training” a theatre journal published from the University of Leeds, UK, by Routledge.

Since 1999 Veenapani has been engaged in designing the Adishakti campus, which houses the members of the Adishakti Theatre, Dance, Music and Puppetry Repertory Company. The artists’ residences, the Guest House and Theatre on the Adishakti campus are the result of a collaboration between her and architect Srinivas Vasthukam of Kerala: a former student of Laurie Baker.

She is currently creating programs for Adishakti to be a research centre for performance arts, which will host residency programs and workshops for artists from all over the world. Towards this end in 2008 she designed a three year project on the Ramayana “Pluralism and Performance: The Many Voices in The Ramayana”, which will host dialogues between artists, experts and academics at Adishakti.

Performer Vinay Kumar
Vinay Kumar KJ did his B.A in Theatre Arts, from the University of Calicut (1992). An important performance from this period was Woyzeck in which Vinay played the eponymous role.
During this period Vinay also learnt Kathakkali from Krishnan Namboodri. In 1992 he joined Anghanam Theatre in Chavakkad, Kerala, for a nine month period. He started learning Kalaripayattu.

In January 1993 he joined Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre Arts Research and he has been with Adishakti as an actor in residence since then.

In 1996 Vinay received the APPEX Fellowship, which took him to UCLA for a period of two months. During his stay at UCLA he directed a group of artists from the Asia Pacific region in a production of Antigone. In 1997 he went to Bali on the same Fellowship and then again to UCLA where he performed in The Myth of a Hero a collaborative project between him, musician Paul Dresher and Chinese Peking Opera director Chen Zhi Zhen.

Vinay Kumar has travelled nationally and internationally with his performances in Adishakti’s A Greater Dawn, Impression of Bhima, Brhannala, Ganapati and The Hare and the Tortoise.

In 2008 he directed Ionesco’s Rhinoceros with Adishakti. He created the sound-scape for the production and also designed the lights.

In the same year he redesigned the lights of all the Adishakti productions, simultaneously training the entire team in lighting techniques.

In August 2008 Vinay collaborated with British film director Lucia King in a performance about performance in her documentary film shot at Adishakti. Vinay Kumar has been Veenapani’s collaborator in her research into performance techniques.

Performer Suresh K
Suresh Kaliyath has been with Adishakti since 1997. He is an accomplished Ottan Tullal performer, which he learnt under Guru Kalamandalam Gopinatha Prabha & Mohanakrishnan over a period of fifteen years. He has also studied Bharatanatyam and Parichamuttakali.

Suresh has performed with Adishakti in Brhannala and Ganapati at various venues both national and international. He also performs in Adishakti’s The Hare and The Tortoise and Rhinoceros. Suresh has a Diploma in Mechanical Engineering.

Performer Arvind Rane
Arvind Rane has a B.A. in Economics & Politics from Mumbai University. He has been Creative Supervisor in Advertising Agencies like Shilpi, O&M, Ulka, Contract, Lintas and RK Swamy from 1981–1997, while he was in Mumbai. Concurrently he was with Adishakti during its Mumbai phase from 1981 to 1992. He rejoined Adishakti in 1998.

Arvind has performed with Adishakti in Brhannala and Ganapati at various venues both national and international. He also performs in Adishakti’s The Hare and The Tortoise and Rhinoceros.Currently he is performer in residence with Adishakti.

Performer Nimmy Raphel
Nimmy Raphel has a Diploma from Kerala Kalamandalam in Mohiniattam and Kuchipudi dance; forms which she has learnt over ten years and which she has performed all over India.

She is currently a resident actor, dancer, musician and puppeteer at Adishakti, practicing its methodology of theatre since 2001.

Nimmy has performed with Adishakti in Brhannala and Ganapati at various venues both national and international. She also performs in Adishakti’s The Hare and The Tortoise and Rhinoceros.

Performer Pascal Sieger
Pascal Sieger {Equivalent of an M.A. in Education from Metz University in France.} Learnt music from Luciano Paliarini. He is now a professional saxophonist and composer and has played sessions with leading musicians in Europe and the USA and has composed extensively.

He has been with Adishakti since 2001 and simultaneously at Auroville. Pascal has performed with Adishakti in Brhannala and Ganapati at various venues both national and international. He also performs in Adishakti’s The Hare and The Tortoise. He has composed the music for this play.

Performer Arjun Shankar
Arjun Shankar is a self taught guitar player, who has been influenced by many styles including Jazz, the Blues, Heavy Metal and Disco. He was a founding member of Harami Theatre, a collective of young theatre people in Bangalore, in 2003. Under the aegis of Harami Theatre, he performed and collaborated in productions like ‘Alphabetical Order’ and ‘Butter and Mashed Bananas’ as an actor and a musician.

During his time with Harami theatre, he also did freelance graphic and web design in Bangalore.

Arjun joined Adishakti in 2006 as an actor and a musician. He performs in The Hare and The Tortoise and Rhinoceros.

Performer Anoop Davies
Anoop Davies has a background in 3D & 2D animation, audio/video editing, web-archiving, graphic design and is currently doing his BCA. He writes for the Malayalam magazine Mayoori and has made ad films and also acted in a short film in Chennai in 2006.

He joined Adishakti in 2008 as an archivist. He took a month’s training at NFSC for archiving and now is also training as a performer. He operates the lights for The Hare and The Tortoise and Rhinoceros.