Maximum City

The performance, that took place last week, was the result of an intensive 10-day body workshop and residency hosted at HH Art Spaces, Goa, run by Chopra and his wife Madhavi Gore, and was supported by Japan Foundation where six artists practising different artforms came together and were led by Berlin-based Kaseki. The 90-minute piece was a result of the workshop and served as an exploration and response to the landscape of urban India. At this point, amid the monsoons, the city’s picturesque lush green environment was juxtaposed against viewings of strewn garbage, slums and indiscriminate construction.

Nikhil Chopra with Romain Loustau and Yuko Kaseki.

“We reacted to the narrow gully in Khirkee. The performance interacted with the people who’d gathered. We are interested in bridging the gap between elite art spaces and the street. The divide is only getting deeper and the sparkling mall across the road stands as testimony to that. We were also reacting to urban squaller, the mass consumption that so many of us are hypnotised by and the mismanaged trash that remains strewn, festering in the monsoon rains. This is even more apparent in Delhi as it is still a city with a significant green cover,” said Goa-based Chopra.

Observing the chaos caused by the crowd of more than 200 onlookers in the street, ranging between shopkeepers, locals, pedestrians and neighbours who are a part of the surrounding area, Kaseki soon waved furiously to make way for an Omni van, stuck there, almost stepping into the role of a traffic cop. Loustau meanwhile followed a handful of bystanders, as they tried to hide behind dark spaces, to avoid being copied by the artistes. Later, the trio set their eyes on a cart placed in front of a neighbouring building left abandoned, and started exploring its cement walls. Bystanders were left awestruck as Kaseki dangerously climbed the cart and rested against the broken wall of the first floor, while Chopra and Loustau appeared supporting the cart to hold up her weight and prevent it from toppling.

Using her hand and body movements, Berlin-based Kaseki was also seen enacting those glued to their phones as the onlookers tried to capture videos of their performance. Talking about the vitality of the audience in such performances, Chopra said, “The audience completes the cycle in a performance, of what is being said and what is being interpreted. My favorite audience comprises people who have the appetite to watch. They are children, as they come with no filters. Often they are staff — cleaners, museum security, production assistant, hosts and essentially people connected to the work, who get attached to the piece and the process.”