Pre-Departure | Alden Phillips

Well so far this summer has been busy. Between family vacations up north, work, SIP preparations, and trying to catch up on all the sleep I've missed since going abroad last fall, I've barely had a chance to get excited for India. However, now that I'm leaving in less than 24 hours, I can no longer come up with excuses to put off packing. The idea that in just a few days I will be performing Kahani in an outdoor venue in India just blows my mind. This show that we've all put so much effort into creating will finally be put on display for a primarily Indian audience, and the reactions we're going to receive will be completely different from those from Kalamazoo. I'm really excited for this trip for a million reasons, but there is one thing specifically that I'm anxious for: the heat. Here in southwest Michigan it's reaching nearly 100 degrees in the afternoons, and I dread leaving my parent's air conditioned house. Will it be even worse over there, when we're performing or walking around exploring the city? Will I spend the entire trip drenched in sweat from the high humidity? I'm a Fall/Winter kind of guy, so I've never been a fan of the heat, and this has been adding a lot of stress to my packing. Regardless, I know I'll have a blast, and eat some really good food, so whatever else happens it will all be worth it.
Alden Phillps

Video by Zac Clark

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Pre-Departure | Cameron Schneberger

     India. It feels less like an adventure at this point and more like a reward. It feels like this journey is my prize for all the nights spent in the dimly lit Balch Theater, for all the days spent entirely in soft focus, for all the moments of stress followed by triumph followed by more stress. For everyone in the ensemble, I feel like the eventual trip has been made more and more fantastical in our heads with every discussion about it. We would often end our rehearsals with a brief teatime in which the conversation would always turn towards the trip. We would ask our director, Irfana, questions about where we were going. What do people wear there? Will everyone know English? Should I cut my hair or would that be unstylish there? No matter what we did on stage, the thrill of stepping off the plane and into the Delhi airport always tried to eclipse our thoughts.

     Personally I'm feeling really sentimental about it all. I've never participated in a performance I've known and understood so intimately. It's our baby, so every time we perform it I feel like we're leaving the piece complete vulnerable. Will the audience like it? Will they hate it? Will they be cruel to it? I'm also concerned about eventually performing it for the last time. I feel like all of us put a lot of ourselves into this piece and I'm worried about leaving it behind forever in India.

Cameron G. Schneberger

Pre-Departure | Anya Opshinsky

     The more you have to do the more you are able to get done. This statement has proved to be unbelievable true of my recent life.  My summer has consisted of catch-up dinner dates, reunion house parties, camp counciloring, babysitting, and countless city adventures.  I have kept extremely busy considering I had nothing I really had to do.  By the end of spring quarter I had gotten used to having every minute of my day planned, I woke up at ten and worked until midnight, studying, frisbee practice, Kahani rehearsal, improve and as many odd campus events as I could squeeze into my schedule.  The Kahani project has inspired my desire to use theater as a tool to accomplish my other life goal which has always been to assist people and communities that are struggling in some aspect of their life. I know that sounds extremely vague as does the term social justice but I can not force myself to narrow my aspirations before I have explored my options.
     I can't possibly express my excitement to explore an entirely new culture, one that will surely overwhelm all of my senses and force me to reevaluate the customs I have excepted as "normal" since birth.  We are not only being given the opportunity to explore a new society but also bringing some of our own culture, to create an experience of mutual sharing.  I hope to not have our devised theatre piece come off as assumptive considering it undoubtably can come off as being about an Indian family. Its creation allowed us to step into the lives of characters that were born and raised in India yet none of us had ever experienced life there first hand. It's a fine line between exploring traditions and gender roles of a world somewhat separate from our own in order to expand our understanding and making assumptions about a foreign culture based off a small number of readings and other resources. In short, I hope our piece is well received and I can't believe my luck that I have been given the opportunity to partake in such a exciting life changing adventure.
Anya Opshinsky

Pre-Departure | Joseph Westerfield

      After all the shots and packing, the reality of the trip explained to us at the beginning of this process is coming into fruition. Explaining the project to friends and family has collected a wide variety of reactions ranging form the monosyllabic "wow" to hour long conversations. With less than a week before our departure, I find myself looking back at the process and looking ahead to our stay in India awestruck finding it difficult to articulate my excitement and anticipation with anything other than a "wow."
        Before Kahani, my experience with devised theatre had been limited to campy skits in a classroom or camp setting. This process challenge my perception of theatre from the linear schedule that most of us were accustomed to an exploration of culture and systems that we play a part in our daily lives. Everyday of rehearsal felt like a performance; we would create scenes, movements  and a vocabulary to share with each other. The element of constant collaboration was one of the most rewarding  aspects of this process. I was always amazed at what the ensemble would create and the ingenuity they all possess. Kahani under Irfana's direction  lead me to view theatre less as an institution bound by books and texts, but more as a medium of art akin to paints and clays. We began molding this piece without knowing what it would be or how it would be received on the main stage. Now, after our run in Kalamazoo and on the verge of arrival in Varanasi, I am now curious to see what our work means to a completely different  and widely diverse audiences abroad.
Joseph Westerfield

Pre-Departure | Fiona Carey

     Kahani has meant a lot for all of us. It's made us ache in our hearts, brains, and calves alternately. It's pushed us to be bold and honest in devising something unique to ourselves, and to the layered moments of its wild and twisting creation, but also, hopefully, somewhat universal. Kahani has also meant cups of tea and fig newtons as we gather after a tiring rehearsal and do-your-Indian-visa-application parties at 2 in the morning; lots of sweat, lots of laughter. MORE SWEAT AND MORE LAUGHTER TO COME IN INDIA!!!!!!!!!!

     I find that, while I loved the intellectual work we did, I experienced that age-old theatrical thing whereby our best work came when, informed by that scholarly grounding, we were able to transcend it into the realm of the wordless, the gestural, and the electric. And I've learned a lot about myself, but that's not nearly so valuable as the moments of connection we've all shared — collaborators, audience, passersby, blog-followers... ;-) Our Kahani is a very, very social thing. I can't wait to see how that will expand in the next leg of the journey.

I AM ALL ABUZZ FOR THE NEXT LEG OF THE JOURNEY!!!

Fiona Carey

Pre-Departure | Jane Huffman

When I first heard about Kahani in the fall of this year, I had two reactions.

1.     What a hell of an opportunity.

2.     I’ll never, in a million years, get a part

Despite getting cast in a Festival Playhouse production two quarters in a row and (assumingly) succeeding at my assigned roles, I attributed much of my success to luck. Although I certainly acknowledge that I have talent and experience in the performing arts, I suppose that out of fear of big-headedness, I’ve blamed my success on the fact that I’m operating in such a small theater department. I figured I would never get into a play that provided its ensemble a ticket to perform abroad, what with all of the talent among the upperclassmen and the returning juniors. Therefore, when I saw my name on the callback list, and then the cast list!—I did a victory dance in my dorm room. I called everyone I knew. I started researching the ins and outs of Varanasi. I also scanned my room for the Drop/Add form that would allow me to add “Intercultural Spaces” to my already jam-packed schedule. (I managed to lose this form, again, out of fear of being presumptuous, but it eventually reappeared from under my bed, much to the satisfaction of the registrar.)

            That first week of rehearsal was a whirlwind of character work, rolling around in the rehearsal room, tuning my senses, reading fantastic literature, more rolling around in the rehearsal room, and more group bonding than I have ever experienced working on an ensemble show. There’s something really special about working on a production with such a small group of talented, intelligent, compassionate individuals. Everyone was so willing to spill their guts, to embarrass themselves, to take enormous risks, to stand in front on their peers and be as vulnerable as possible, that the rest of the process sprang naturally from that point. I think my favorite part of that week was writing my own childhood narratives while reading “Mai.” Right off the bat, it allowed me to see the things we were really trying to get at. I was seeing connections between the story and my own life left and right, and this was an excellent platform for creation of our play. Having gotten into touch with my own past—and all of its shades of gray—I felt comfortable and confidant that I could delve, deeply and honestly, into the fiction. Although I struggled with portraying the author’s message and the Indian culture “honestly” throughout the whole process, I was very glad to have the experience of telling my own story before I was asked to tell someone else’s.

            The division process was nothing like I expected. Having come from a theater background that involved very little devised theater (other than a wildly unsuccessful week-long theater camp that involved devising a play from a homespun children’s novel), I had not idea what to expect. I guess I assumed that we’d be “writing a play” in the more traditional sense, although, looking back, I see how silly that assumption was. I don’t know how I expected ten creative minds to be able to sit down with pencils and paper and write a full-length, producible, and fully rehearsed and designed play from scratch in five weeks. The process we went through was so much more physical and hands-on than I expected. I was a little hesitant to throw my whole self into it at first, but once I realized what we could create—even in a tiny amount of time—I definitely opened myself up to risk taking. Throughout the process, when doing group assignments, I naturally found myself trying to take the lead. I think the entire ensemble is composed of leaders—though each of us certainly leads in a different way. Very early on, I had learn how to rein in the control I had an impulse to exert. This is something that I have had to learn how to moderate. I am definitely the kind of person who gets an assignment, gets an idea about how to proceed, and immediately starts directing. Especially with something so creative and based on self-interpretation, sharing the control is exceedingly important. I discovered that in order for the process to succeed, every person had to exert themselves and their opinions. Our final product truly is a compilation of everyone’s insights, ideas, and visions, and I’m exceptionally proud of that!

            Once the piece was finalized and our lines were (however hastily) memorized, I started looking at what we created in a different light. Once we reached the end, I could start seeing the value of the process much more. When I was in the middle of it, I often let the stress of uncertainty take me out of the present. I often became so focused on putting something on the stage that I forgot what the five weeks of classes and rehearsals were for. At the end, many things opened up to me. Once I was allowed to think about it retrospectively, I could see all of the very logical, very deliberate, very out-of-the-box methods that we used in order to create a production. The process of being involved in Kahani certainly made me realize how important the process is when creating anything. I learned that I have to try my hardest to operate in the present when in regard to both my academic and extracurricular work, but also in my day-to-day life. I can’t let the uncertainty of the future prevent me from fully experiencing the present.

            Kahani also taught me a lot about what “culture” and “social justice” actually mean. Of course, I came in knowing the vague definitions and applications of those words, but immersing myself in a social justice project that dealt specifically with another culture forced me to dissemble my preconceptions. I learned that “culture” is all about asking questions. It’s all about the human experience. People throw words like “diversity” around all the time, and that’s fine, but working on Kahani showed me that culture and social justice are less about structures like “diversity” and “hierarchy” and more about what connects every human being on the planet earth together. To act in a way that is “socially just” is not limited to feeding starving children, or taking classes on feminism, or adhering to the commandments of political correctness. Social Justice is about obtaining curiosity, acting on that curiosity, and trying to share that curiosity. Needless to say, Kahani has allowed my curiosity to come pouring out, and I am looking forward to a college career, and a lifetime, of perpetuating it.

            Now, as I finish my packing and preparation, I look forward, with an open mind and eager eyes, to bringing our production, and my newfound awareness to Varanasi. I am certain that this final stage of Kahani will provide an incredible end to our incredible journey.

Jane Huffman