A non-verbal response to intolerance

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Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The idea for IT IS YOU came to Vivek Vijayakumaran, artistic director at Our Theatre Collective, in 2022, but the desire to stage this performance was slowly taking shape within him over the years. “I wanted to respond to the religious intolerance emerging in the country, as well as elsewhere in the world.

In 2022, I was disturbed by the demolition of Muslim neighbourhoods in Delhi. Sometime after this, I happened to be in Delhi when my father-in-law passed away. I attended a ritual being conducted in the gurudwara, after which the family was allowed to sit inside a room.

It was then that I visualised some performative images which resonated with my need to respond to religious intolerance. These images stayed with me." Vijayakumaran then returned to Bengaluru to complete a previous production, Imagine A Room. “We had an event scheduled to showcase two documentaries on Kalakshetra Manipur, one on Sabitri Heisnam and one on Heisnam Kanhailal, founder-director of Kalakshetra, Manipur.

We also had an actor training workshop by Pangambam Tyson Meitei on the Kalakshetra’s actor training pedagogy. Kanhailalji played an instrumental role in guiding me for my play Bhima, and in 2012 I met Tyson in Imphal." Vijayakumaran says he has visited Kalakshetra, Manipur, many times and he has a special bond with them. “It was always a dream to have Kalakshetra come to Our Theatre studio." When Tyson was training his actors for Imagine A Room, Vijayakumaran had an intuitive response to collaborate with him for this performance.