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Yah, it 's Harmage Singh Kalirai And what do you actually do?
I'm actually, I trained as an actor. And went into directing and producing.
And that was, em, are you part of the British South Asian community, aren't you.
I always think it's weird this thing. You call it British South Asian. Or is it South
Asian British. It's like where do you see yourself. Like, you know, you have like Black
British. So why is the Black have come before the British. Or is it British Black. You know,
where where is that ideology and the politics come from and where does one sit in there.
And I see myself not sitting with any of it, really.
Oh fantastic. Especially now. You know, I'm thinking...
But you're forced into a situation where you have to be slotted. And so, that slottedness
comes in. Because I'm not sure what South Asian arts are. As in from the Subcontinent,
or from here, you know, whether e e, so to me, what I do is almo is is really related
to my experience. So the work I do is whatever experience I have I put in. 'Cause I never
studied South Asian arts as as such, as such. So let's talk about your personal journey
then. How did you get into this creative work? Er, I as as an actor. Er I er...you know,
as as one did when I was growing up. Er, I mean I came here to this country when I was
young, so, and then studied it, just did drama at further education college, and then. At
the end of those couple of years courses that everybody did, they all went to drama schools
and auditioned so I thought, oh well, I might as well do the same thing and, so I did the
same thing, got accepted in couple of drama schools and I went to a drama school in London,
just outside London. Which was?
Er, Rose Bruford. So I studied there and then er, and then I went to abroad and studied
in Paris, er for a couple of years there. At Lecoq. And em...yah, and then doing that
doing those between those times around when I was studying at drama school I went to Czechoslovakia
and studied mime there. So mine's been very much a, very much a physical er...er a kind
of physical look at theatre as opposed to coming in a, in a kind of text based. Er,
I was I was, quite good at mime. I don't know. Some it was something that already there before
I went to drama school. I just, happened to be good at doing things. Mime and and, with
my body and movement. So em, and all the parts I always had something to do with the black
shadow or or or whatever spirit or something like that. But anyway, em yah. So that was
my entry into the profession. Er, through the the, as an actor.
And where were you born? In Punjab, India.
And when did you come here? I was about seven when I came here.
Alright. And so how did your career then begin to form itself, because, you know, there's
casting consideration and how people view you?
Yah, I mean, you know, as anybody going to drama school, you you you you study there
and you just don't see yourself as who you are. You see yourself as an actor. That that
goes across across the board really. And so you don't, the realization comes in as you
leave drama school, when you like try to look at work, and you think, you are not getting
work and why aren't you getting work, you know those, but I didn't do that after drama
school. I...I did one project up in the Fringe Festival, and then, after that. I wanted to
study further. I wanted to do some, I wanted obviously go to Lecoq and study that form
of theatre. And so, I went straight after the next term, after leaving drama school,
I went straight to Paris and studied there. So it was after that, even then I didn't want
to come here even though there was a lot of jobs being advertised, because I think they
were doing a play called Borderline. At the Royal Court they were doing, em, er, what
was that TV thing er, something, Jewel in the Crown. And they were they were they were
casting that. And I couldn't be bothered because I was just having a bit of fun. I was hitchhiking
around Europe, and then there was I was going down to the south of Sardinia where there
was a workshop going on, you know. So I thought I'd do some clowning workshop. Er, and then,
from there, that was cancelled. Some festival, something happened, and hitchhiked all the
way to Berlin to do, to do a workshop there, Then went to Trondheim in, in Norway to em,
to do er, again workshops there, the university So I stayed there for about a month.
And where were you brought up in England? I Lancashire.
And how did that impact on you're your creative work?
Well, I I mean, in a sense I'm a northerner. So in in the sense of this country, a northerner
had that kind of northern humour, from a working class community, er and so when I came over
it was, when I was devising or working, that's to me always kind of very much part of that
thought process of where I was coming from. So, working, coming back to London, and in
fact, eventually getting there, it's then when I started looking and then, all this
idea of being Asian came about. I didn't know what Asian was before that sense. I never
used the term. It only became usable as I came in and the first person who was kind
of using it was Ja Jatinder, Jatinder Verma. And he kind of, I think he was the one explained
to me what it meant and I just thought that was a bit of a laugh really. All this thing
about being called Asian. It was and that was what you were. And there was a Festival
of India, festival Alternative India, er, festival going on as well. And that's when
I discovered that actually the work that I was coming with, you know, my ideas were very
based on Lecoq style of forming companies and working a very physical kind of way, er,
er, and doing using movement, mime, theatre. But when I went to try and form and work with
people, people didn't really have an understanding of what I was talking about.
So how did you manage then? Well, that's what happened with that. There
were companies like Steven Berkoff. His company were doing that kind of work and I understood
that that's the work I want to get into and Moving Picture Mime Show was another idea.
Em, er, then Shared Experience with that kind of work, storytelling through physical forms,
all those kind of three companies were influenced me a lot, er, is the area I wanted to be.
But nothing was around. And then I met a few people who were forming a company called the
Asian Cooperative Theatre. And so that was with Farrukh Dhondy. And er Deepak Pasu and,
and a few others. And they said, look, come with us. Let's with, talking about forming
a company. So we met and feep. Kept meeting, and finally we formed we formed the company
called Asian Cooperative Theatre and that's the name which stuck. And then we had quite
a broad peo people, invited few people to join us, er, and that time, there was quite
a a broad, a a a group of people where they'd er producers, administrators, actors, writers
we didn't have any directors at that time, so I was one of the actors and er, and then
worked. That was the company basically I was part of. Eventually, after a few years, I
started running the company, er, which started doing workshops and then what have you. So
I became kind of a producer, coordinator-producer in the company. Er, but, I think started from
there because of work. You are forced in the situation to look at who you are which is
the colour you are, because it's based on colour. It's not nothing else about cultural
whatever links. So you ain't getting the work. Er, as an actor. Am, and the work you get
is what I call the most Patel Singh Ali jobs, you know. So. Those are the parts that you
get. You get Mr. Patel, Mr. Singh, Mr. Ali. And the and that's loosely based on film TV
work. Er, theatre work, if it's to do with the British Raj at that time, you got a job.
Anything else, you worked in theatre in education, er, which, which was the only area that didn't
matter what colour you were. Black, white er brown, Asian, whatever, doesn't matter.
So you employed. You were, you could actually play any part. You could devise shows. And
it's about politics. And also Moving Parts Theatre Company, where we devised shows about
politics at that time, women issues. Thatcher was really er quite big at that time so it's
er or period after that. So it's politics. Em, so because of that, what happened is,
because of the way I worked at Lecoq, and the way I worked everywhere else, so I started
formulating a kind of way of working as a director and and workshops. So the directing
as aspect started entering my my kind of life. And again, to do with not getting enough work
as an actor. And I can't I'm not the person who just sits around and wait for jobs to
come by or, you know, so I had to do it proactive in in another way. So that's when producing
and directing came about. And the last thing we did at the Asian Cooperative Theatre, when
I was involved was, I wanted to do Lorca. Lorca's, eh, Blood Wedding. And I wanted to
do it, and because I wanted to look at the the whole history of Kathak, and how it evolved
into kind of from, and the gypsies. The kind of evolvement from leaving Rajasthan, at that
time, going into Spain. There was there was, there was a southern area, was going down
towards the sort of Middle Eastern, towards Spain, and the other area was through Russia
and all the Eastern Bloc. Em em, Romanian, Bulgaria, that kind of, so there's two branch
of gypsy kind of movements. And so, I wanted to set Blood Wedding between India and Spain.
So between there we had, so, we had quite assortment of actors, Caribbean, African,
Chinese, Indian actors. And er, so I was there as a producer.
So you still have a bit of...of an Asian theme in some of your work.
Yah. Em, how important is that to you, or not at
all? Well I suppose it's what you doing is is you're
kind of, within or your, what you're also doing is in some sense you're kind of learning
about who you are, where you are from. It's part of the work, as all all artists. And
so, you don't question it originally, you don't think well I'm going to do something
about my life or where I'm from. You just are kinda forced into that situation. And
then once you start looking, It's OK. If ever I want to do something like Lorca, because
it's a very passionate play, and I love the play, but then if it's a Spanish play, is
how is it relevant to me, what's it because it's, you know, you have universal themes
in there. So how is it universal to me. And how is it important to me where I come from.
So that's when you start investigating it. So you have a sort of different way of working
with South Asian themes than some of the other South Asian theatre practitioners that have,
em, created some really quite clear, em, categories of South Asian work. Em, and you kind of have
slightly different way of looking at it. Yah.
Which is much more multicultural and much more global?
Yah. I don't I don't I I see it as a kind of using my experience into a project so I
don't see it as a South Asian theme or whatever themes. I mean I look at it and see what can
I put into it as in my experience of physicalizing it. Physicalising the text. Looking at the
different colours and what, whatever. That's that's the concept I come into.
So as a producer, how did you find the funding mindset.
Er, yah. I mean it's changed lot over the years, you know, it was very much categorized
always in the A, because that time it was the Asian area, not South Asian. And now you've
got East Asian and South Asian, you know. You know all that stuff. And then you had,
you kind under I suppose umbrella first the umbrella was Black theatre. And in the Black
theatre season that we had, you had Black er African Caribbean companies, you had the
South Asian companies performing within that, in that area. So the pocket that you would,
er, apply for, would be under that umbrella. You know, under the um, then it became the
South Asian as well, sort of, em... And you couldn't do. You had to relate the work you
did because otherwise you wouldn't get the money, 'cause er, you don't get the money,
you can't be em er, the Smith Theatre Company. You had to be the Patel Singh Ali Theatre
Company. And they get your work. So my colour, calling itself John Smith Theatre Company,
I wouldn't get the money. I wouldn't get anything. But having called it Patel Singh & Ali Theatre
Company, I would get the money. But do you think you'll get the money now
if you called yourself the John Smith Company. Well, well, I wouldn't call it John Smith.
I'll call it something else like, what we have is Zero Culture, you know. So to to the
whole point of zero culture says quite a lot from our background where we come from. So
that's the kind of setting. You put it in such a way where actually, what do I concern
myself with. It isn't with Britain. It isn't with India. It's how I am reflected to my
experiences around the world. I mean, my my world is Europe, Indian Subcontinent and Britain.
Those are the three areas. I I haven't lived in the State or Canada although I've been
there. But, or Australia. So that's the connection. So my world is in those kind of areas. And
and sometimes you can get challenged by by your own perspective, with your own background
and your own belief. My other project that's coming, I mean we did a pro production of
the Maharaja and the Kohinoor, which is er written by Hardial Rai, and er, which was
a film script originally and then what we did was made a theatre in education programme
which we actually took to LA in America. And then, there's a lot of Sikh community there.
And it was the last Maharaja of the Punjab and it talked about the the relationship with
with the Maharaja and Queen Victoria. So having taken it to LA. Although it doesn't have that
British, er, Raj kind of experience. It was interesting taking it there because it was
the, it's the immigrants that evolved maybe from, sort of India, or East Africa, UK, then
America. So it was just a different journey to it and that was kind of interesting looking
at that. So in a sense your journey also has come from
where your parents have come from, where your ancestors have come from and how they er,
came to adopt, perhaps, the values and environments of this country and then you grew up with
that mix? Well I I come from a business background.
I mean, you know, my father was working in a in a cotton industry factory, my mum was
working in a biscuit factory, so that's the area that I grew up in, you know, er, knowing
that there was parties going on every Christmas in this er er cotton industry. They had a
massive and it's a very English party to me. Coming from India was like whoa, this is great!
And then my mother would come in at the end of the week with some biscuits, large biscuits,
and wow, this is great! Nothing, any relevance to back home in India, so we, we just had
a great time as, as, young people, you know, growing up in this country. But, but my father,
what he did was develop business. He was like a Singh of all trades, you know what I mean.
He, you know, you have to look after your family so he was doing carpentry, plumbing,
decorating, DIY, going round to people's houses, fixing them up, getting paid for that, and
then, 'cause he was, I think I think that immigrant community at that time would come
in and they'd need, they were very good survivors. They knew how to survive. Whatever business
they were in, they knew how they would, how how to sort of implement it. He went into
selling shirts and ties in in markets. From there he developed his rag business, rag trade
business. And that was how I was brought up. In the rag trade really.
But you never went into that. No I ran away from it. My father wanted me
to take over his business. So the, my way was to get, the only to get away from it was
to run away and then involve myself in drama. That's why I studied drama, was to run away
from my father. And what did he make of it. I mean, to this
day, what does he think? HSK Aw, he hated it, he hated it, he hated
it. He tried to find me everywhere I was, er, to try and bring me back into the business.
Em, until I until I eventually thought I've got to leave the country and I went to Paris
and France, to study there. So that was quite traumatic really?
Yah, yah it was. But that actually formed you. It it sort of
created your character. Your cultural character or your creative character.
I I kinda you kinda look at why why am I doing the arts? Why am I in theatre? Because there's
not, you know, I now a lot of white actors when, they really want to become an actor.
And that's what they did, and, I never had that. And I thought, well, I never really
wanted to become an actor. I only did it because everybody else was doing it. And I though,
that's what you do, because I didn't know what I wanted to do? I mean, I was studying
engineering drawing, em, in A-level and, you know, looking at wind forces on on bridges
and stuff like that, and, em...so, so partly, I I kinda wanted, I had a movie camera, super
8 camera, and I wanted to direct films. So there was a wanting of that, but I didn't
know to implement that so I just left it. So so I guessed somehow there was a drama
element to it. I think there was something about the freedom of movement, led me to kind
of, there's a there's a philosophy that Rose Brufford in the drama school have and that
is the freedom of movement leads to the freedom of the voice. So, and and what I was good
at was movement, physicalizing the things and suddenly doing, just grabbing things,
and I just knew what to do with my hands and how to create things, and how to open doors
and just sort of knew. And I developed that further and then when going, studying in Lec,
at at at Jacques Lecog was very physical school and I was very happy there because it was
like I felt, oh at last, I know this. I can do this. And that, I think, if anything, er
kind of er, molded me into theatre. I think that's when I realized that I I quite like
this. I want to develop more of this. But I never had the opportunity to develop it
though, that's the problem. Well, there's always an opportunity now.
Well yah, I mean, partly, er...it's it's difficult because part of me was I wanted to be to develop
my the the the as an actor. The kind of work I did, so be challenged by it. But you weren't
being given the challenge in parts. Em, so, you kind of start exploring the the directing
side of it. I'm still, I mean it's still it's still an exploration.
So if your father hated what you are doing how did you finance your training? How did
you manage to go from place to place? Er, I told him I was training to be a teacher,
er, that was when I was in London. And so, I happened to get two thirds of my fees paid
for. The rest , he helped me. Or or I got I got a grant for that actually, And later
when I went to Paris, I said this is a specialist course in teaching. And then, the Rose Brufford
helped me in that, because I applied for a a scholarship or something that, they gave
me an award to help me to go and study in, which is what, that's the two third actually.
That helped me pay for the fees in er, at, in Paris, Lecoq. And then I worked there.
I worked in hotels, baby sitting and things like that. And I stayed in a flat with two
other people, I shared and dossed around and, that's how I paid for myself.
So that's quite good actually because they kind of supported you em, didn't they. You
know, through the grants and through the scholarships. The support, you did get the support. Em,
nowadays you can't really. It's so difficult isn't it.
No, no. Nowadays no, you you have to, get a massive overdraft from a bank and having
to spend the rest of your life paying for it. That's what's happened now. We were lucky
then. But not lucky. That's what it should be now, I mean it should, you know. You'd
have the right to be able to...you know, every every child should be educated, you know,
as far as you can take them. So do you ever think about your audiences
when you create our own work? Yah, you know, I mean the audience part of
the, some of the work we do is catered for a particular kind of audience, like young
people. So it's kind of really looking at some of the history, like when I mentioned
the Maharaja and the Kohinoor, it's looking at the history of the world's biggest diamond
diamond. And the history of the Raj, the Queen Victoria, and what happened in Punjab and
how, the Sikh and British wars that were going on, you know all that, their really looking
at the history. So we would take it to schools. We'd do an hour's show, an hour workshop.
Em, so it mattered. And so, yah every show you do, the the, the audience are very important.
And did you kind of keep the physical aspect in your direction.
Some of the time. Yeah, sometimes em, I would, it all kind of depended on the time of rehearsal
you got. Some time you only had, it's different. I mean, we are thrown in a situation, we didn't
have enough money, we would have one or two weeks rehearsals on a new play and you just
had to get on and do it. You didn't have time to explore it. So, whatever came out, some
of that physicalization came out, some didn't. You just get in to do the play just to make
sure you get ready. You don't have the luxury of four or five weeks rehearsals. And you
got a rehearsal room, you got a theatre, or you booked in, we didn't have you know, you
are in a company where you have to do all the bookings, you have to find venue, rehearsal
venues and money to pay people, the transport and, you know, you are setting everything
up yourself, doing all that, so you wait there, on an artistic vision alone. You had to think
outside that as well. So there's a lot going on. You haven't had the luxury of a director
whose just there creatively, directing, sometimes. So how's that help your work evolved over
time then. That's where the producing directing came
on. So now, as a director going in, you have an understanding of how the whole thing works.
As an actor I wanted to know what happened to the lights, and the costumes. What was
happening and, it's me there as an actor, but I wanted to know what was going on around
me, so that they are helping me tell the story as in within the production, and I'm inside
there, telling this same, you know, so I always wanted that kind of quali so, in a sense,
that kind of fitted really well into directing producing, because it's that knowledge. You
need to have an overall, er er er, understanding of how, you kind of see the world in some
sense and, and er, so that helped in in in, to see the tour, where the problems are. You
already see problems coming up, so you try and iron them out as early as possible.
So how do see the whole kind of South Asian theatre scene now and where you might be positioned
within it, em, and how is it spilling out and how is it evolving into other areas. How
is it being embraced by all of British society? I sometimes find it, it's difficult nowadays,
em, out there, because there are a lot of new people coming in who come in per the perspective
of, em, of their coming in, that they are creating this, whatever this South Asian work
is, that they are creating it for the first time. And there there, iron things out. But
they got the luxury of social networking. Lot of luxury for other things that are already
implemented, and it's easier, to get a a camera and start taking photographs and get a website
and just shoot it up in the website and and then feeding information daily what's happening.
We didn't have any like the luxury. But, the fact that there is a whole history to this
kind of work, whatever that work is, there's a whole history. That's there, you know. In
in a kind of a, where to im were implemented for you. For anybody out there. But sometimes
there's a superficially, a a superficiality about it all. So people come in thinking they
can just get in there, and do a piece of work, very quickly. And when you look at it, I've
seen some of this work, and it's, I have to say it's crap. It's just a lot of ***.
When you look at it, thinking, what the hell is this rubbish, you know, and there's just
no solid kind of background. There's no building or the concept of understanding of what theatre
is, what rehearsals are, what acting is all about, what experience is all about, what
you do and how you spend four weeks on a text, on a piece of line, on a word, to have that
meaning, to what it's about, to exploring dynamics between characters, you know. To
spend time, er, meaningful time to go underneath the text, underneath the play. Then bring
together, with the lights, and the costumes, blah blah blah blah, and then have that piece
presented to the audience, eh, as opposed to spending a few days at it. I'm I'm being,
OK, you know, but, and then just present. I there's a, I've seen work out which I just
think is just, when I says, it goes back back back back, and even then, back there, they
had some good production. I think sometimes it's a lot of...
It's interesting you're actually referring to a proscenium stage, a proscenium arch stage
type production. What about other genres nowadays, because we've really kind of merged a lot
of the the categories haven't we. Different ways of performing, different styles. How
do you feel about that. Because it seems to me that your original work and original intention
was to burst free of all that Not, that is just a square. I mean it's that's
not what I'm saying. But actually my work doesn't, I it depends on the venue you get,
you know. I mean I'm all into breaking that, really. Er, I I prefer to have a style and
create it, then break it, and start creating something else. That's the challenge in it.
And that's one of the things that's that's my background, which which implements itself
and to breaking styles and creating new styles. Em, so I like to use dance. I mean er when
I worked with the MAC, Midland Arts Centre, there, they had the Arena Theatre. So, and
it's got a semi-round theatre. And then we built a stage between the bar and the café
area, which is outdoor, where we had a dance event. So it's a kind of site-specific but
also promenade show, so the audience would follow the action all the way down to where
the lake is and then into the Arena Theatre itself where the, where the action would happen
in front of you, would happen behind you, when we had a battle scene, we had people
all over the place battling. So it's kind of using, the the the the, whatever you have
there to tell your story through storytelling, through dance, through music, through the
spectacular as an epic form. That's what I'm really into, what I love doing. Em, big spectacle
theatre, but also it has to have the narrative in it. Has to have story. Have to have a professional
way of working. So even those people, I mean we have about seventy eighty people in the
cast. So we had young people, people from the community, you had dancers, you had musicians
in there. But each, you have to push them all up to a standard where they are all in
the same standard, you know. So, you had professional actors in there as well, so. But everybody
had to work very very hard to get it up to a certain standard to tell that story. To
to link it all together. Yeah, that so that's a specific example of
a of one of the the productions you've done. Em, can you think of any others that em, perhaps
for the viewer who might not know your work, perhaps you could describe some key production
in your your life? Perhaps that's really, you know, which really, you're proud and really
thank that that that was a stepping stone. I don't know. I I don't think that I have
any production that is a stepping stone, you know. Em, I I don't know,
But in your, you say is is exploratory, what you are doing is exploratory, you are finding
out things. So by your productions, you must be, you know, things must be coming, em, suddenly
apparent to you and you think, my god, you know, there's a revelation here.
Well, ex exploration happens two ways. One, it's it's it's, er, an organization you work
for. You don't think about the money, because it's already funded and you employ the actors
and people like that. You have maybe two months rehearsals and you do that, you know, you
can different ways of exploring. Or totally the other way. You have no money whatsoever.
But you've got a committed group of actors. Committed group of people. And, and what you
do is you come together to create work. So there's only two ways you can explore other
ways of doing of of, of of really kinda of er, er going to areas where you haven't gone.
You are cha, everybody is challenged. You know, there's a company called Footsbarn.
Footsbarn Theatre Company. They're a a company who I saw when I was studying and saw them
afterwards as well and I thought they're they're excellent in in that kind of way of thinking
of working as an ensemble group of people who would leave the distractions of a city.
Distractions of life in other ways but they are all committed to doing, I don't want to
say theatre. Some some kind of creative work that they do together. So they're singers
and they're dancers and they're actors and they're administrators, producers, writers,
directors, teachers, and er, they would live, they have, they went somewhere round Devon,
or Cornwall, that's where they were, they had to perform there, and they worked and
lived there, and produced work. You know, even the classics like King Lear were fantastic
productions. But they had kids there. They had teachers and they went on a world tour,
you know. And that is the old style of kind of circus, you know. The circus that comes
to town. The whole family comes together. That was like a family, of people. Arianne
Mnouchkine in Paris. Her theatre. Again she sends months and months rehearsing on a show,
with a group of maybe twenty thirty actors, who, when I was with them, and I knew a few
actors who where there, everybody would cook together. Everybody would eat together. Nobody
knew what part they were playing. They were playing different parts and trying, I would
be Richard the Second, somebody else would be Richard, somebody else da da da da it would
change and change until finally she would cast it. You know, it's that ensemble work,
what I would love to work, as an actor, or as a director, you know, but I've never done
that here in this country as a, I've done little bits of it. Like with the Young Vic
we did em, a production of er Arabian Nights. And that was an ensemble of about nine actors.
We worked together did really well. And then, after a few months, they decided to do a,
a UK tour of it, and er, we got back together and did a six month tour together. And er,
and that was really cool. That was really physical. And people, storytelling and da
da da da. Yah. And why did you say you'd never done
this like Arianne Mnouchkine's work, type of work here. Why do you think that is? Is
it the funding constraints? Er, it it's different, it it's partly funding,
it's partly also finding the right sort of like minded people, who think, although I
I have, I'm not saying I was the person to do that but I had some, maybe some bits of
that thinking that I wanted to explore. I couldn't find anybody else to do the similar
things, who'd who'd think that way. Em, the at the the thinking here was you were an actor,
you get a job, you do a three weeks rehearsal, four weeks rehearsal, you do the show, you
do a tour. And that's it. That's everybody. They just thought in those kinds of levels.
There was no other kind of thinking that was going on. The only way you would moo, I mean,
Footsbarn was around the 60s, they had that 60s mentality, you know, of of of of of of
work at that time. So, and there weren't making companies, you know. They had the rep system
here. The system here already existed. You fit in, and you get a job. Or you don't fit
in, you have to create your own system. There was nothing there, you know. And people did
it in threes, fours, very small. You know, like a a, as I said earlier on, Moving Picture
Mime Show, which are three act, three performers who studied at Lecoq, did that Lecoqian style.
And later on Complicite who there a year below me, but formed, few of them formed a company,
they did really well. But, you know, you have to find the like mind. But they worked with
Lecoqian actors, who had that thinking. Understanding or when someone gets on a on a on a stage,
to to improvise. They have an understanding how where they are going to go, what you're
gonna do and how, em, work as an ensemble member. You know, you have to work with like
minded people. I achieve now?
Er, I mean, um um. The way at Zero Culture, we're we're kinda what the way we do, we're
loosely, we're we're a collection of producers, directors, writers, although there there aren't
that many people, that's the way we work with other people. So we work with other producers,
other writers, who are other other theatre buildings as in co-productions and what have
you. We don't want to keep creating the kind of er, the circle, as it were. We don't want
to cre, re-creating the way of working, those way of working success so, what we do, we
have an idea, and we take on and work with other producers who might wanna work with
us. And we don't have a building or, we just have a, you know, we don't have a, a continuation.
We just pro, apply per project. And, so I do that. But I also work as a freelance. Freelance
actor, freelance director. So, I don't like to tune myself in one particular company.
I'm not Tara, I'm not Tamasha, I'm not Kali, I'm not Zero Culture. But, I'm not, I think,
but I think Zero Culture doesn't come like that. We don't create it as a, a Asian theatre
company that has a background of Asian work or whatever, even though we have. We don't,
it's not an Asian theatre company. It's just a company that does music, does dance, theatre,
film. Those are the areas we are involved in. So we don't particularly say we are a
South Asian, er, that works with a South Asian area. We don't. So, it's breaking all that.
So, is there anything in particular you'd like us to know about. About your work, about
where your vision, where you aim to go, what else is there, what's the future, how do you
see the landscape of, you know, the cultural landscape of this country? All these questions?
Anything that comes to mind? I think I think one thing to take in mind
is that, without a past, we don't have a future. So if you ignore the past, you can't go anywhere.
And a lot of the mistakes that are made when you know already what's been created, already
been experienced or that already had been had, and I think it's, it's about looking
what's been in order to be where you are now and where you want to go. That's so vitally
important that we miss that sometimes. We just get into a position where we are, I have
all this to offer the world, and I'm going to do it. I'm going to go forward and do it.
That's good. But also you have all that history behind you that got you to that place, and
that's that sharing you do, when new people are coming in. And it's just about sharing.
It's not saying I know more than you. I know something that I can pass over to you, and
you have something fresh, which I don't have. I want that. So it's a it's a two way exchange
that we have a meeting ground. That's when creativity happens. It doesn't happen like
that, or like that, from where I come. It happens when it's like that.
Great, thank you very much. Thank you.