The Class Part 5

The Class Prologue
The Class Part1
The Class Part 2
The Class Part 3
The Class Part 4
"Have me made some progress?", said Ben
There was silence for a while.
"I haven't been able to progress on my story yet", said Ajay. The others kept silent.
"I think it is a little early after the last meeting. We just had one day in between", said Kay.
"So what do we do?" said Ben
"You said you will tell us something about your work and you used some word as well", said Arpita.
"Documentary theatre, yes we could see some videos"
A video of Rabih' Mroue' was played.
"He works on the Lebanese war. His presentation is just him speaking through the computer and the documents on the screen. He talks about all stories related to Lebanese war, he is kind of obsessed with it", said Ben
"This kind of theater is quite common in Europe. A lot of experimentation happens"
Then the video of Frank Wedekind's Lulu-Dienuttenrepublik was shown.
"This director comments on the sexuality and violence in the society. These women you see are actual Berlin prostitutes, they sing in chorus throughout the play"
"This is amazing", said Aditi
"He actually gets the prostitutes to sing on stage?", said Arpita
"They sing in kind of chorus which is not so much like an opera", said Kay
"Now we'll see Rimini Protokoll. They have a different approach. They work on the principle of Marcel Duchamp, who says art is already there it just needs a context. He takes a urinal and turns it upside down and calls it a fountain. In this one Rimini Protokoll have a girl who is telling her story. She was a korean adopted by German parents. She was not told this, but it didn't take too much for her to realize, here she was in Germany looking very different. In Germany there was this period when a lot of kids were adopted from Korea. So this girl now wants to know who her parents were, her journey starts from the newspaper in which she was wrapped. She talks about her journey showing the photographs of her, her family ..."
"I think they came to Bangalore..", said Aditi
Then they saw the video of Rimini Protokoll.
"Here she says I have said I about 57 times in this short time without actually knowing what it means", Kay translated the video which was in german.
"Yes I have seen this same play..", said Aditi
"Rimini Protokoll is three people who are together a group...", said Ben.
"But there are also criticisms of you know which story is considered worthy and all that but this is one approach"
"This is the trailer of another production of Rimini Protokoll on numbers and their representation"
and they saw the trailer where numbers were translated into people and how it would look.
"This production is the hate radio. It is the recreation of the hate radio which prepared for the Rwandan genocide."
"They actually recreated the radio again!", exclaimed Arpita
"I will also show you some work that I have done", said Ben proceeding to play the video.
"In this city in Germany, there is a ghetto where all the people who are waiting for a residence permit are stationed. Coincidentally the place is actually the Nazi ghetto. The walls have been broken and all that but you can still see traces.."
"Where are these people from?", said Arpita
"They are immigrants....most of the time the permit is denied even after waiting for years"
"In our production we got some of these people, some pictures..."
"It is a brilliant way to question what has really changed", said Nishita
"The aim of this kind of theater is to raise a dialogue, to make theater a public space for exchange.In Germany and Europe there is a lot of experimentation and exploration that is happening."
"You must also have heard of the theater of the oppressed"
"Do you have anything on these lines here in India?"
"Not that I'm aware of. I don't think this has been tried in India...", said Nishita looking for answers from others.
"No I don't think", said Ajay.
"We have been exposed to only one kind of theater it is very interesting to see all this", said Nishita
There was a long pause, almost indicative of a long internal dialog with themselves.
"Okay so if no body has anything to say, then we meet next Monday", said Kay