Commissions

Abundance in Scarcity is an immersive project exploring the interplay of scarcity and ingenuity in Ladakh. Nestled in the Himalayan cold desert, Ladakh’s environment has fostered sustainable practices and cultural resilience. The project features stories and installations that capture the essence of this resilient landscape and its people. Key themes include ‘ingenuity in scarcity,’ highlighting how limited resources drive creativity and sustainability; ‘cultural resilience,’ showcasing how ancient traditions adapt to contemporary challenges; and ‘environmental stewardship,’ prompting discussions on the balance between human life and ecological preservation. The project aims to foster collaboration among artisans and creators, sparking dialogue on sustainability and cultural preservation, and inspiring action towards integrating these practices into the future, while initiating conversations on fragility and sustainability.

Over the years, women’s work songs historically construct and reproduce their repetitive drudgery and everyday rhythms–further becoming vehicles of the construction and reproduction of gender identity. Accompanying their work with singing, accentuating the rhythms created by the everyday work. With dancers identified from specific geographical locations, this production will demonstrate the spatial, linguistic, and thematic range of women’s work by platforming music and dance forms in various languages, such as the Ovi from Maharashtra, weaving songs from Punjab, the Portuguese Fado from Goa, and songs of migration and separation from Bihar.

The performance will construct interconnected spaces, both domestic and public, in which women’s lives and work unfold. It will consider the loneliness of this work but also the contexts it offers for women to experience fun, friendship, and the divine. It offers a glimpse into the richly textured lives of everyday women through their conceptualisation of and relationship to work in their own words and voices.

Three artists and three dance forms—Ottan Thullal, Bharatanatyam and Kathak—come together in a journey with myth, music and movement, combining elements of theatre, percussion and other allied forms. Through this confluence of art forms and artists and the journey we collectively undertake, the performance aims to uphold a certain awareness of our actions, of what we do with our lives and our art. What must change, and what needs to stay the same?