Notes on: Aurat Raj (25a)
A thick spire of twisted fabrics reaches up, or plunges down; a heavy umbilical cord between sky and earth. A frozen vortex is at its base, or a dark and oily mirror. The fabrics are flame-coloured, knotted in a complex cord. Four young women in plain white garments, loosely draped, work about its base. After a while, we come to suspect their all-consuming labour is to uphold it. When they are not diligently focused on their own set rhythms of motion, the spire trembles, drops a notch.
Aurat Raj (translated from Hindi as ‘Women Rule’), a 25a production written, directed and produced by Pratha Nagpal, unfolds like an abstract folk tale or a modern South Asian feminist parable. It is told almost entirely through the body; with choreographed rituals that evoke a garment atelier (or factory floor) and traditional dance – pulling, weaving, stomping – a complex skein of elegant motions. The air seems supple with their gestures and embodied motifs, with percussive syncopation pounding in the small theatre as bare feet stamp the floor. (Respect to movement choreographer Nikki Sekar, also part of the ensemble.) When the structure seems at risk, they anoint themselves from the centre pool.
The tension of the story is located in the intergroup dynamics, and motivated by the youngest of the four women, played with a wayward vitality by a wonderful Anusha Thomas. Where the other three women honour their unique rituals of labour, she rebels, and incites other small acts of rebellion in others, too (like Kirthihaa Veluppillai’s character). For instance, instead of inscribing a straight line on the ground again and again, she draws a wavy one – and delights. This angers and alarms the eldest of the women (Vinaya Elijala), who reprimands the headstrong youth, sometimes with force.
It is after one of these reprimands that we hear the first and only English-spoken words, bursting from the mouth of Thomas: ‘It is you who do not honour it!’
The ending of Aurat Raj is climactic; a near fatal scene of destruction and irrevocable loss. The grief that ensues is protracted, and moving, with a beautifully aching score (Christine Pan, what is this music and how can I listen to it again?).
I’m uncertain how this ending is meant to be interpreted. You can come away (as I did) convinced of the resilience of the women, and their binding love and support for each other. Optimistically, I want to believe that the youngest’s gravely imperilling act can made them stronger; liberate them from an all-demanding superstructure, and open up a future of collective and individual agency and possibility. From the silence of the tragedy, after all, comes song.
Or perhaps that’s not it at all. Did the young woman jeopardise and even destroy something sacred, that can never be remade? If this is true, the story could be a question of how to deal with loss, forgiveness and guilt. And how to move with strength and solidarity into an newly bereft, unknown future. Could both interpretations be true? Are neither?
I’m very much at a cultural remove here, in many ways. While I can’t directly relate, I still hope I am feeling something of what this bold and haunting performance art hopes to convey.
I’ll leave the final words to Nagpal, as written in her director’s note:
The world of Aurat Raj was conceived in India, where I entered this panic when I examined the relationship between my aunt, Ashu Mami, and my grandmother, Nani. I panicked about what it means to be a good woman. Good women take care of culture and good women work hard, day and night. Good women don’t complain. Good women are dedicated to continuing tradition. I panicked about my goodness and its inability match the goodness of my aunty and how her goodness fails to match my grandmother’s. In duty, we the good women sometimes misunderstand our purpose.
