8 online sessions
between
25 September and 17 October 2020
Imagined and Produced by Pickle Factory Dance Foundation and Goethe Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Kolkata
Curated by Vikram Iyengar, Sharvari Sastry, Christophe Knoch
Co-presented with Offbeat CCU
TAPS PhD student, Sharvari Sastry, co-curated conversations and presentations addressing the live performance experience as an art and part of the human act of assembly.
In the wake of the COVID19 pandemic, all gatherings have come to a grinding halt. Human-to-human contact has suddenly become dangerous, spaces and occasions that bring us together are now looked upon with suspicion, and un-camouflaged faces are a rare sight. In losing the ability to gather, we have also realised how vital it is for us to assemble together, and to have public spaces that encourage and welcome this most human of desires.
The performing arts sector across the world is among the worst hit. The tactile, visceral, sensorial bedrock of human-to-human contact in real time, place and space is fundamental to the live performance experience. As we reckon with these new realities, we are faced with an incredible opportunity to revisit our pasts and reshape our futures by addressing fundamental questions about the human experience and the creative magic of being together.
This is where CONTAGION: Performance, Space, Community steps in, with a conviction that the live performance experience is vital for the health of a society and that performance spaces and experiences should be re-imagined as a celebration of that vitality.