In a New Light

There was a new level of attention the first time we performed. We were overloaded with trying to take in everything thing we could about our new environment, while keeping ourselves in the moments of each scene. Our play seemed almost like it made more sense now. No longer was the audience hung up on what the different family names meant or how this family’s life was interrupted by seemingly unrelated scenes. There was, for some performances, a language barrier. Yet, after talking to some audience members and hearing comments second hand, it seemed that the language barrier may have stripped the play down to its simplicity. The words, of course, were important, but the visuals stepped in to help make sense of the message. The family relationships seemed to resonate with the audience because everyone had some understanding of family. Sure there were certain intricacies and specifications that attempted to give context for this specific family, but if anything these made more sense when finally performing in India. Performing in a different place with a different climate and changing venues helped show us how versatile our show really was. It was at times challenging to adjust to new spaces, unfamiliar climate and, new audiences, but it helped us exercise a muscle that is particularly important in theatre, “Just going with it”. With each performance I understood the play in a new way than I had in Kalamazoo. Sometimes things must be given new context to attract the attention they deserve, and going to India provided the cast of Kahani with this very opportunity.
Sammy Jolly

A Comfortable Vulnerability

At Kalamazoo College, Kahani had transformed into a buzzword that I had to constantly explain and justify. When people asked, "What is Kahani?" the real meaning of the question was "What is this weird hyped theater thing and why should I care?" I don't want to say there was any bitterness towards the project, but after a couple of disjointed newspaper articles, rumors and daily sighting of the ensemble members rolling around on the grass in front of the fine arts building, Kahani didn't reach the campus's conscious as an understandable thing until it was performed. However; due to the unfortunate timing of DOGL, for many students the existence of Kahani never stretched beyond the cryptic poster and the knowledge that 10 lucky students get to go to India like some liberal arts version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory. I remember by finals week there were still some students asking, "Aren’t you in some India play thing this quarter?"

Even with a low student interest, Kahani was the first piece I'd participated in at Kalamazoo College that had received mixed reviews from my peers. I think it's safe to say that even by liberal arts standards Kahani is not a normal play. In fact sometimes I don't even think of it as a play and instead think of it as an experimental performance. I could easily see Kahani being an modern art exhibit, performed in a dimly lit room with silky blue cloth crawling down from the ceiling and every time the play ends, the actors would repeat while the viewers come and go. A lot of our ensemble conversations after our first set of performances dealt with the idea that people didn't "get" Kahani or maybe the piece we created just wasn't understandable. With all this in mind, I was extremely nervous to take a piece I was so unsure about to the other side of the world.

Audience members in India responded to Kahani in a couple of surprising ways. First off, there was almost a bewilderment of the audience as to why some students from the US wanted to tell an Indian story and how we did it so well. I never liked looking at Kahani as an Indian story (even though it clearly was) but I was flattered that apparently we were believable as an Indian family. Also, audiences in Varanasi, at least to my knowledge, were never frustrated without understanding what was going on. The biggest critique of Kahani at K was "I didn't understand it when..." Even the school children seemed to understand the performance and weren't entirely bewildered when characters started dancing to represent the passing of time.

My biggest regret is that I became too sick to act in the second performance, which I understand had to be rewritten to accommodate my absence. Other than that, the experience of performing in another country filled me with a sense of vulnerability that I'd never felt before. The last thing I felt different upon our varied stages in Varanasi was comfortable. At K I'd become accustomed to our Balch Theater and performing the play there became almost a chore. In Varanasi, the play was filled with a new nervous energy that made every step I take a careful choice. 

Cameron G. Schneberger

The Blink of an Eye

I have been reflecting with a lot of care on Kahani's trip to Benares. Jaime says that we're the stories we tell ourselves. My mom told me, “You think you will remember, but you won't. So you have to write it down.” And I know that with dreams, but even waking, the thing that sticks beyond the drying of the dew is whatever we tell other people. So I've been writing and thinking and telling with a lot of care.

I will never forget that first ride in the sumo from the airport to Nirman. An airport doesn't count, so really it was our first breath of India. I had expected my stomach to be all wrought and wrung with excitement and happiness, but I felt neither pleasant nor unpleasant — just wide-eyed. For once — though if I had thought about it then, I probably would have lost my balance — I was in that state they talk about which is beyond thought or judgment. I didn't register what I saw as good or bad, only “wow.” I thought, okay, here we are. We went past buildings and people and cows, trees with stripes painted on them and folks on motorcycles and little kids and someone hefting a bundle on their shoulder and old men and schoolgirls in their matching salwar kameezes. There was Hindi everywhere, written and spoken. Chip vendors, garbage, autos. Everyone was just doing their thing, and there we were, doing our thing, which was to get to Nirman. When it started raining, I wasn't at all surprised, though Anthony said they had been needing a good rain. That's what it felt like to me — inward and outward monsoons.

Now, a few people have alluded to culture shock, and I have got to say, I think that's pretty impossible. I think you need to be immersed in a place for months in order to experience culture shock, or culture. When folks start in with a kind of 'you must know so much about Indian culture' thing, there are a hundred separate responses which go off in my head like popcorn in many directions. But I will tell you this. As student-performers and guests in that city, we learned a lot. It was the blink of an eye, but what a sweet blink it was! I told someone about that thing in ecology whereby dry ground, desert ground, cannot take in rains all at once, as you would think it could. Flooding happens. If the soil is moist, though, it soaks up the downpour like a sponge. I felt a lot in Benares, and wonder how it can have been so intense — and conclude it's because of a lifetime of reading, hearing, thinking, and dreaming about India which all became most recently wrapped up in this great and juicy theatre project.

Ed asks us what was different doing the show in the States and in India. You know, I think people had different ways in to the work, different barriers to and different ease with all their different ways of resonating with the story. At K, people may have known more about the project because they saw it take shape, whether up close or peripherally in the community. They also may have had a more fixed idea of the show as “Indian.” For some people, the questions in the show provoked an itch to pursue definite answers and concretely situated feminist morals of the story, goals which have their time and place but which we found ourselves smoothing out, redirecting and opening up during the talkbacks. Or at least, that was what I found myself doing. A subjective show about subjectivity is an invitation into the postmodern opalescence of questions turned back upon themselves, that's what I found; that dynamic was more apparent when we performed Kahani at Kalamazoo College than when we took it to Benares.

But when we took it to Benares, we were thinking about other things. The concern the ensemble had had at K with making the show technically snappy — with 'having our shit together' for each other, for our techie collaborators, and for the audience — was replaced with a desire to work with it in its fullest flexibility, the trait we had been working on, the one which allowed us to take the work to different venues with little rehearsal time and our hearts in our hands. We might have listened more in India because our ears were already pricked to new sounds. And I think in India people's first response to the work was often of relating the family onstage to their own — 'You walk just like my dada!' or 'I was so sad when dadi died,' or 'My own mai jokes just like that.' There may have been an artificial wall of national and cultural identity that folks erected in the States which was less a barrier in India.

We did, however, deal with a language barrier in Benares, and I have got to say, that made it so interesting. I won't say I love language barriers, but I pretty much love language barriers. It's not that they're good or easy; but I think it's so interesting what gets through them. What is it about the work that transcends words? That was something we were always wondering. Mai is a novel in Hindi was then translated into English and adapted by us in a crazy spiraling process for the stage. When Nita Kumar, who had translated it, saw the show, she told us that there were things she was unable to translate which worked their way back into the story gesturally, physically. To all of us that was highest praise. I am always looking for where and why that happens. What about art transcends its medium? What about speech is more than words? What is it in a glance that can bridge the gap? So with all of this in mind, our bodies became very important. (And oh by the way we were SWEATY. Let me tell you, it's a whole different show when you're as soaked as we were in Benares.)

In Benares, there was a certain aesthetic thing that took place that was even bigger than our bodies, maybe, or smaller. All of a sudden, the fabric and the bricks and the props made sense. It was like they had come home. All the colors and textures fit a little better than they had fit on the stage of Balch. And the props that we replaced — I keep telling about how I saw at least five people sweeping with grass brooms just like mine. The Raja Ghat performance was so effulgent, so sweet and apt and luminous in that 200-year old building, in that courtyard, that it would have been worth taking us there just for that, in my opinion.

It's really important the way you fold the past into the present. It's of utter urgency that you not tear its delicate paper or its insect wings, that you catch the tune and hum it to yourself a few times, so as not to forget. You have to do two things at once, not kill it with stifling nor let it change unrecognizably, so that you can access it one day and know that around the corner from that memory is the thing that made the memory, the instant when the you of the past could have turned to the you of now and said, with glinting eye, “This is what it feels like.” This is the way the chai tastes. This is the way the air feels. This is what is going on in my heart, while I behold all of these things as stunned as if I just woke up.
Fiona Carey

Falling in....

When I came to India to perform Kahani, I did not expect to fall for it. I did not fall in love persay, but through time I began to find myself drinking in India's dust like leaves photosynthisize the sun. I feel the same thing happened to my attitudes towards performing Kahani. State-side, performances helpfully forced me to rexamine myself and my personal parallels to my character Sunaina, and pushed me outside of my comfort zone. Here, it was a more outward exploration. Here, I was confronted with the question of "how do you know?" Whether it was Indian culture, the family, its workings and oppression and trust and bonds and relationships, or other themes, there was an outsider's question of that connection, which I was able to share my personal findings and bounce them off of others. The secret? Therein lies the same between the culture I know and the culture I explored, albeit different constructs. Performing Kahani in the location it was set made the international similarities all the more clear for me, and possibly more clear for the audience as well through our talkbalks. Here, our story (no pun intended) has come to fruition and clarity at a level that can break even language barriers and personal biases and stigmas, my own included.

McKenna Kring

What I Saw When I Looked Up

Above all things, ten days in India was exercise in deconstructing the dichtomy between mind and matter. For much of the trip, I relied on my old habit of intellectualizing. In order to deal with new surroundings and challenges, I depended on my intellectual capacity to keep me secured to the ground. I could decide when to engage, and with what, and with whom. I could douse my mosquito net with Deet 100. I could keep my eyes fastideously fixed on the ground in front of my muddied tevas.

But India soon rejected my tendency to neatly place mind over matter. Cars carrying dozens of faces, cows carrying hundreds of fleas, and people carrying thousands of years of history came at me from every angle. My precisely planned and packed suitcase spent four days flying over Europe. One of our actors was too ill to perform at our largest and most grandoise venue. I was unable to compartmentalize all of the things I was seeing and feeling and smelling and tasting. There was no time to think. No time to reorganize. No time to fill my stream of consciousness with the familiar rains of brainstorming. The monsoon had washed away my careful plans into polluted sewers of Varanasi.

And so, I started looking up.

As soon as my gaze extended beyond my comfort zone, I saw a city full of vibrancy and a group of my peers with a brilliant knack for improvisation. Together we navigated the spidery streets of an ancient city. We made up for eachother's faults. We shared Rupees and Pepto-Bismol and unconditional support. We were often unrehearsed and unshowered, but each of us, in our quiet ways, rose to the occasion.

In the sweltering heat, in the ghostly shadows of crumbling brick buildings, in the presence of peacocks and camels and domesticated cows, in the company of incredible writers, actors, and artists, I finally began to understand what it meant to "trust the work." My rambling brain shut its rambling trap and I was able stand in the twinkling tea lights of Raja Ghat with the utmost confidance that we would succeed. And in my opinion, we did.

In this country you cannot look down. It is too alive. It is always changing. Today, I reflect on this as I pack my souviners and smelly clothes into my carry-on. Our stay at Nirman has made an intregal impression on my development as an actor, as a student, and as a world citizen. I have learned stories and rules and rituals. I have looked into peoples' eyes. I have peeked into a facet of the human experience that is so radically different from my own that it has forced my eyelids open and jerked my chin straight ahead.

"Own the world," said Nita, our host and teacher, "not just your own country but the whole world." Although this advice is simple, it summoned from within me a previously untapped passion; I want to do things that are universally meaningful; I want to find the fine, transparent, but unfathomably strong threads that connect all of us; I want to continue to look up, up, and out.

To my friends and supporters, thank you for your boundless trust. I will carry the echos of this ensemble, this production, and this experience with me as I move forward.

"We left the house peacefully. Together we left the house."

Namaste.
Jane Huffman

Race, Class, and Gender in Varanasi

Such a cornucopia of race, class and gender moments in this beautiful city. My African-American, genderqueer partner, M’Bwende’s race is at times a connector to folks here – ‘Ah, you are African?’ Or – ‘You look Indian!’ And, ‘Indian, Indian?’ And my whiteness is a magnet around being obviously Western, and accordingly, possessed of out-of-scale resources in the midst of poverty.

On my end, around negotiating for motorized or occasionally bicycle rickshaw, I pay the Western fare without negotiation. I understand that the rate I am quoted is two or three times the local rate and my take is: of course it is. My salary is perhaps fifty to a hundred times higher than anyone’s annual income that I come across here daily, so what is my complaint? How dare I negotiate with someone who is on the disastrous end of surviving the monumental inequities of North/South global economics every day? I’m not going to do it. M’B has a harder time getting her head around this, as someone who has survived a lifetime of US cabbies refusing to pick her up, overcharging her, or discharging her abruptly based on race and gender. At one point a tuk-tuk driver dumps us summarily halfway to our destination after overcharging us. I just get out of the cab and start looking for another. She is outraged. She engages the driver. As we move on, I say, you know, you can get angry at him, but I just can’t. I have no ground to stand on whatsoever.

And in many ways, the engagement around cabs is eerily similar to our US situation. When I leave the hotel every morning, a group of rickshaw drivers instantly recognizes me and engages. When she leaves the hotel without me, no one notices her or offers. Whiteness, as always, is the magnet for help, service, and consideration.

In terms of gender, M’B has been almost universally ‘Sir’d since our arrival. I’ve had a couple of different sets of anxieties and places of relief around that. First, it’s taken me a minute to shift from the gender place I operate from on-campus and in the Kalamazoo community, which is to make her gender visible as a way of placing queerness into very anti-queer/non-queer community/spaces. So, if I say ‘she’ while our daughter Ella calls her Daddy at the coffee shop/lecture/local event, I am doing it in a context where I’ve assessed the relative physical threat to her and to all of us as minimal and opted for authenticity in the moment. She is Ella’s Daddy, and everyone around us can just have whatever moment they need to have about how that gendered reality sits with them.

Here, we were in a boat going up the Ganges our first evening, having a lively discussion with our guide, who has been calling her ‘sir’ the entire time we negotiated the boat arrangement and at some point I just say ‘she’ in the middle of all that and I can see her swing her attention toward me, like, are you really here? Get here. And I did, but this is a moment I have been having more and more lately -- gender slip: Get here. What context are we in? How are you sitting in your gender conforming space of privilege and not seeing the difficulty/danger you are placing me in? I have always drawn on the ah-ha moment I had reading Leslie Feinberg back in the early 90s, when s/he wrote that his/her gender is contextual – this is exactly how I’ve experienced M’Bs gender in our life together: she here, he there. And now that we are in this new context, I’m slow on the uptake, perhaps dangerously slow.

The place of relief I’ve felt has been around walking in the street late at night with him. During my visit last year, I was here with the wonderful Margaret Weidenhoft of K’s Center for International Programs, and we are both very light skinned redheads, which is a ridiculous rarity in Varanasi. Walking around the packed lanes late at night, we were a magnet for curiosity and merchants of every stripe – two white Western women unaccompanied by men. I felt daunted by how often we were approached for cabs or other kinds of sales; it was hard to have a conversation, and to be consistently polite and firm about our disinterest in buying anything. By contrast, one night, M’B and I walked about 3 kilometers back to Assi from the North Chaulk merchant district and I felt such relief to be walking with a brown man by my side. People still clocked me, but didn’t approach. We enjoyed taking in all the incredible sights and smells and movements together. We took our time in the lessening heat of the day; it was one of the pure pleasures of our trip. In the US, I have on occasion felt this kind of increased mobility with him in DC and Philly’s Black neighborhoods, but only by day. At night, I am worried about the police threatening/intervening in his movements, about how any passing person on the street is perceiving her gender, and how these interactions might evolve in an instant into threats or violence. I think the sense of space and relief -- as a couple -- that I had on the streets of Chaulk and Assi may have been a first in our 7+ years together.

All of this, of course, is taking place as we mount Kahani – the play devised by light-skinned, Western, (largely) gender-conforming students at Kalamazoo College on the tensions of gender and class in India! My head is spinning. I know it will take me many months to sift through all of the layers of race, gender, class and culture that I’ve been coursing through in my time here; I’m truly grateful for it.
Jaime Grant

Arrival, Thank You, and Follow Up

All bags retrieved, all connections made! Continue to check the blog for new posts which will reflect upon our experiences and also new pics of our last two days in Varanasi. To all: thanks for being a part of our journey and becoming a part of our story.
Team Kahani

Travel Update

We are here! At ORD and heading through customs. Thanks for being with us.
Team Kahani

Travel Update

Through security and waiting to depart Delhi.

Through Security in Varanasi

Friends,
We are through security in Varanasi and await our departure for Delhi.

Final Performance

Final Performance:  NIRMAN school in Betawar

Friends,
     Our final performance took place earlier today upon the NIRMAN campus in Betawar.  Betawar is a small rural village outside of Varanasi and the satellite campus for NIRMAN, teaching both younger students from surrounding villages, and older students who are not able to be taught at the downtown Varanasi location.  The NIRMAN campus at Betawar is a beautiful place, along the Ganges, and after our performance we had an opportunity to walk along the Ganga, and through the village of Betawar before departing for home at our downtown NIRMAN center.  We hope you will enjoy some of the pictures.
     Our moments today are bittersweet, as we pack our bags tonight and begin our two days of travel back to the states.  Many of us have connecting flights to various East and West coast destinations, and a 1 hour turn-around in Frankfurt should keep us on our toes (although the 9 hour layover in Delhi....?).
     We look forward to sharing more of our stories as we continue to post our reflections about our experiences upon the blog.  
     Thanks so much for being with us, and for being willing to share in our story...
Team Kahani

Old Traditions, New Friends

Dhamek Stupa at Sarnath

    

Dinner with new friends....

Friends,
     In the morning we traveled to Sarnath - on the outskirts of Varanasi - to visit one of the most religious sites in the world, where Buddha preached his first sermon to his five disciples.  The area contains many additional religious and archeological treasures and is a primary place of pilgrimage.  
     This evening, we enjoyed old traditions in another form, as we gathered together and shared a large meal with our Nirman friends.  It was wonderful for us to share with all the staff who have been so amazing to us during our stay - cooks, drivers, office workers, and other fantastic staff - as we were able to share  and enjoy the tradition of meal and conversation with one another.
     Big day tomorrow as we travel to Betawar to rehearse and prepare for our final performance of Kahani.  Thanks for being with us on our journey.....
Team Kahani

Coming Together: Second Performance at Raja Ghat Complete

Friends,
     We were reminded today of how special it is to be a part of this group.  This team.  This company.  These friends.  One of our team members down and unavailable to perform this evening due to illness, we understood at this time and in this moment that what we have created is... a piece, yes - but most importantly - a process: by which, and through which, we communicate our story.  I know I can't wait to hear from some of the personal blog stories of the company as they share how they worked through reworking the piece in the absence of one of our members.  How did it go?  How did it work?  Fantastic!  We hope to share more soon, and, want everyone to know that while we are not all feeling 100%, we are enjoying our opportunity to share, and understand, in Varanasi.  Our day ended with a boat ride along the beautiful Ganga - peaceful, calm, and cool after our sun-drenched sauna day.
    It was a big day.  Big.  Although it is just midnight now and we are arriving home from our day, we look forward to what tomorrow brings. Tomorrow morning we go to Sarnath, and then probably (India willing) for a rehearsal to Betawar to prepare for our next performance.
     Thanks for being with us....
Team Kahani

Snapshots

     The last couple days of our Indian adventure have been steeped in adventures for some and sickness for others. For those of us who were able to escape our beds in the morning, we explored the shops and sights of Banares. Our spoils of silks and spices were secured in our totes as we braved the heat on the ghats of the Ganga. Venders and bright orange pilgrims charmed the street chanting mantras and offering salutations.   

     In our water-bottle strewn sanctuary that is the Nirman guest house, the ensemble relaxes. In the common area, common activities include worshiping the swirling blades on the ceiling, laughing, complaining, philosophizing and dozing. 

Throwing the advice of K's Health Center to the wind, we fill the void of our pampered pooches with the likes of Nirman's mascots.

Sammy:  a kid in a candy store....

Lanny:  a kid in a different candy store....

Connections of Space and Place

     We are already halfway through our time here in Varanasi, which seems impossible.  Irfana and the Kahani cast have already mounted one production of the play, in a very well-appointed cultural center on the Ganges, founded by a business woman from Calcutta, who has retired here and is attempting to create some kind of a cross-roads for leadership, intellectual work and art.

     NIRMAN founder Nita Kumar notes that like all spaces created by those of us in positions of power, it is a true challenge to create a space that engages people of all classes, castes and experiences, and this Center is experiencing these tensions through its emergent programming.  This is an excellent challenge to consider as the Arcus Center for Social Justice Leadership breaks ground on its new building, which is certain to attract phenomenal scholars and activists to all kinds of conversation and projects over the years.  Nita and I have been putting our heads together talking about NIRMAN’s work to create a vibrant, liberating cross-class, cross-caste learning environment and Kalamazoo College’s aim to do the same.

     Kahani was performed for NIRMAN staff, largely women teachers in the program, and comments after the show were extremely appreciative of the care taken with the story, the interpretation, the attempt to inhabit and perform nuances of Indian cultural and family life while exploring issues of gender and power.

     The day after the show, Irfana led the cast in an excellent debrief that considered the “how” of this.  I shared two elements that boded well for the production in terms of social justice values and tools:  first, the architect of the project, it’s ‘leader’ – was grounded in Indian culture and power dynamics by virtue of having lived them.  This is a key social justice technology:  movements for justice are led by the people impacted by these injustices.   Those of us not grounded in these contexts or primarily impacted by them can work as agents of change in solidarity.  And in effect, this theatre project demonstrates how art can make change within a cross-cultural solidarity model.

     Second, the theatre techniques that Irfana fore grounded in the project required all of the actors to take the moments and tensions in the play and rake through their own stories for moments of connection, divergence and intersection.  How have issues of gender and power shaped my family?  My view of myself?  When do I resist gendered expectations of myself and when do I capitulate to socially constructed limits of gender “propriety” and abandon who I am?  And when I do yield, is this always a bad thing?  A key developmental tool in becoming a strong social justice leader is the ability to recognize when and how the discussion or project on a structural injustice is bumping into or triggering a reaction to the way this injustice has played out in the formation of our families, communities, psyches, and spirits.

     So many of our conversations here have been rich and rewarding.  I am so excited about how much these actors will contribute to the artistic, intellectual and daily life of our campus community in the years ahead because of the Kahani experience.

Jaime Grant

How best to navigate the photos...

Friends,
We hope you have been enjoying both digital- and word-pictures of our journey.  For those who enjoy viewing the pictures (we now have day four uploaded), select the "Photostream" link along the top right navigation bar from this blog.  This will navigate you to our Flickr site.  From the Flickr site, please notice the right side navigation which groups our pictures into "sets" for each day.  We are trying to upload 50 pictures for each day.  Viewing the pictures in the "sets" rather than the full "photo stream" will allow those of you back home to have a better understanding of our day. 
And of our journey.
Thanks for being with us....
Team Kahani

The Finest Woven Threads

     Once upon a time... so long ago now it seems more fable than history, we not just understood, but innately knew, that the richness of our life tapestry was interdependent upon our relationships with one another. Generations of knowing your own family, of knowing other families, of meeting and understanding new friends, all was shaped within the rich cultural tapestry of a community of personal relationships.  

     What hues have we lost from our tapestry today as we have forgotten how we birthed, nurtured, and cared for these relationships so carefully woven in the past?  How much of my self-thread have I lost from the wondrous loom-of-life, as I have misplaced and cast aside woven fabrics of warm hospitality, threads of a deeply resonating friendship, or lost rich colors that can only be discovered in sharing story over tea?

     Here, in India, generation after generation of families have shared hospitality with one another, so that even the potentially banal experience of shopping is transformed and explodes into a richly woven cultural exchange that is, again, at it's most fundamental level, all about...  relationships.  

     This morning, we witnessed, experienced, and basked in these waves of hospitality.  We drank of hospitality.  Our feet rested upon cushioned pillows of hospitality.  Our backs rested upon padded bolsters.  Stories were shared.  Silks were thrown.  Pile after pile after pile upon the floor.  Lustrous, shimmering, oodles of fabric.  Some seemingly magical as the iridescent interplay of shadow and light changed fabric from indigo blue to wet ocean green. 

     Smiles were exchanged.  Prices were ascertained.  Our fingers felt the "oohs" and "ahs" of what our eyes were seeing.

     Masala tea was brought.  And more Masala.  Again.
     How did we arrive here?  How did this happen?  Hospitality.

     Waves and waves of hospitality.  Amazing and generous hospitality as we shared with our friend Naval that we were interested in shopping for some fabrics but had no idea how to begin, where to begin...  Hospitality as Naval called his friend, a shop owner, for us… two families who have known one another for four generations.  Naval makes the call… we experience more hospitality as a shopkeeper's son drives all the way to pick us up and take us to the shop in Madanpura.  Wait, more want to go.  More hospitality as our friend Naval then goes to his home for his car to drive even more of us (and, all of this especially significant as you come to understand what driving anywhere in Varansi and especially along the ghats really means). 

     Hospitality.  Yes, we exchanged smiles, fabrics, and tea.  But as we said our good-byes, we understood that this trip was not about the fabric.  It was about these relationships and especially about the sharing of hospitality.

     Once upon a time seems just moments ago here in India.

     Thank you Naval.  Thank you Ashraf.  Thank you Suhail.   Thank you for teaching me anew to invest in all my relationships more richly,  consider hospitality most carefully, and live for others most graciously.

     Thank you for helping me to better understand that the magical richness of color in our own tapestry is manifest in how we weave…

Lanny Potts

Reflection on Performing Kahani in India

Lotus - A Prose Poem

The whole is greater than the sum of its parts.
x
So is the lotus with its petals.  So goes my first impression.
As I enter the center, I wipe my sole of cow shit and joke "good luck".
As I try awkwardly shift my arms to embrace India, Zuzu's flower comes to mind.
"Paste it".  Paste India together.  It broke.  It's wilting.
x
At Frankfurt Airport the bud beat back the frost of ticket agents not
moved by actors words, wanting paper and proof.  What's new?
When it rains it pours.   Our flow is redirected and halved to Delhi and Mumbai.
Half got a hotel.  A separate half got our luggage.  Eight hour flights and waits.
x
We're here.  Varanasi.  Ravidash Ghat.  I'm here.  Overwhelmed.  Scattered.
In this spiritual center traffic is a ballet of invisible auras
barely redirecting bumpers around nestled island temples,
rickshaws, pedestrians, sumos, and chai-colored flood.
x
Before I came here I thought gray was the absense of color.
The monsoon's afterflow between rickity streets taught me different.
The color is brewed of thick milk, sickly tea leaves, and deluge
steeped in trash and cupped in the crone's hands of badly irrigated streets.
x
So many colors.  A "Dora the Explorer" backpack passes, and I wonder if he knows.
Cigarrettes that stain teeth yellow are exchanged for rolled pan leaves that stain red.
I watch men pissing against rubble, and later hear moos clear outside my bathroom.
The power flickers, and I wait for the generator.  "Shiva?" I ask the dark.
x
Leaflets of Indian's Kahani make another decrepid petal out of upcycled
crumbling establishment redefined as indepent civilization.
The sun drums, and I'd expect it's rythm to create more nakedness, not less.
Only the faded advertisements follow this formula, like home, in this Time Square of tin and cloth.
x
Beggers swarm like the mosquitos I take malaria pills for;
"Nahi" and "English" and "Ignorant" and "Spoiled" our only defense against them and
Spiders the span of our palms.  At home we'd squash these problems.
Here they're too large, too present to ignore.
x
Cold showers by headlamp are as sweet as hot candle-lit baths.
Indian sweets are just as sweet as state-side sweets.
Their difference makes some scrape their tongue with teeth
until they can brush them with bottled water and toothpaste.
x
A battery-operated will-o'-the-wisp guides my caked shirts to the filled sink.
Next my skin.  I wash off pellets of bugspray, sunscreen and today's walk to Gyan Pravah
when a crane broke down and put the dance of bat-like traffic in an actors
hold amongst the sonar honking of "I am here.  Where are you?"
x
We take our lunch break outside on the parked bus, our stomachs welcoming egg sandwitches
ostrasized by vegan regulations.  Forced off-campus like smokers in high-school.
My internal stage manager vents about me being in costume.
Actor.  Assimulated.  American.  Caucasian.  Cultured. Calm.
x
Finished consuming, my structure unfurls, yet fights to bend each vertebrae.
I place a rectangular wildflower seed amongst more of the same.
The hillside in overtaken by building blocks of trash:
a new tower of babel for cows to travel up and reach nirvana by.
x
We brought our child here to be raised by a village.
India is defined by its villages, or so a native tells me.
We were afraid, the womb of US so different
than the vaginal canal of the river Ganga.
x
He thrives, healthily screaming with the same vivaciousness as the vivid
contrast between hiked up sari and ankle-deep monsoon.
I project, each syllable bulstering our play like a mother's foot under a child's.
We came to touch people.  Not teach.  All of us relearn how to walk.
x
We return, flies tongue's french-pecking emaciated cows.
We pass beloved peepal trees, their midriff's belted by red and reflecting white bands.
the spade leaf's abundant shade reminds me of the Indian way: Kind, hardworking,
Resourceful.  we fix with duct tape and super glue.  They fix with tin and cloth.
x
We're in 7 hindi newspapers, our names and stature disciplined curves and lines.
One day we'll be pressed into paper plates for simosas.
We don't get that kind of attention or intimacy at home.
India has pressed us, pressed us into something notable and sustaining.
x
In corridors an armspread apart we navigate props around cows and their pies.
They lead to the east, to the river Gangi, the collector of spirits and sewage.
Swim, and you step on skulls and osmose cremated ashes into your pores.
washed saris press into the steps like accordion folds.  This river is their life.
x
I connect, making contact with people and pillars that once housed monks 200 years ago.
Now it houses our production, our toddler.  Make-up runs.
There is something magical about the environment between
the audience and our bodies and the heat of our words.
x
We went out: out to the market, out for South Indian food, out for a religious ceremony.
As we walk, a man slaps a rambunctious cow.  Our guide cups her cheek as we pass.
A row of men in arches sing, pull bells, pray with out-stretched palms, and religiously
wave feather-duster fly swatters like old ladies with fans.  It reminds me of church.
x
I wake up batting the air in fluttering panic against swarms of itching polka-dots.
The sleeping form of my roommate grounds me.  It's just fan air, electricity willing, for now.
Hair goes up.  On goes Gold Bond, Degree, Nutregena (40 strength), Off! and Coloricon.
Teva Tirras are slipped halfway on, then respectfully off for breakfast.
x
When walks are canceled due to heat and rain, Pepsi is purchased for the equivalent of seven cents.
When rehearsal is canceled due to 3.5 sick and 100% tired, we re-center under spinning fans.
I toy with my Azithromycin pill, hoping my parastaltic rushes don't rush more.
I'm the .5.  We've embraced the slowness of India.  It's just a momentary traffic jam.
x
Ankle bells purchased at the market for one hundred rupees, or two dollars tinkle
hopeful songs of wind as my left foot rolls a half-moon imprint to pivot me on my right.
I try to relearn my center of gravity like Antony of Mumbai suggested.
Shiva destroyed my perceptions and now creates in me.  Broken becomes stoic.
x
Our plastic, returnable glass, toilet paper, chrome, cubicles, scaffolding, and insulation
is traded for biodegradable clay, reused bottles, water, brick, alcoves, bamboo, and generators.
Sleep and running and filtered water and general stability may come and go, but
If you jam-pack America's United States inside, there's no room for India.
x
It takes two days for sink-washed clothes to unabsorb.  Two days to fully absorb two days ago.
You have to ditch your watch.  Embrace India.  Just like our luggage, when you stop calling out it will come.
As I reexamine the petals, the lotus rises from the mud and flourishes amidst
trash heaps, lean-tos, temples, trees, and tourists.
x
The parts are greater than the sum of its whole.
McKenna Kring

Diving Into Dirty Water

"What you must do is submit to your surroundings. Submit to the grime and also the beauty. Submit to the chaos. It is then that you will survive...and it is then that your luggage will show up!"

As Anya and I stood in the lush gardens of Gyan Pravah, watching the sun fall over the Ganges, this was the advice offered to us by Antony, one of guides and fellow travelers. We had wandered away from the Kahani reception, and with our mugs of Chi were exploring the grounds of the venue that hosted our first performance. The sky was turning the color of an overripe mango, and as we chatted, shadows swept across our sweating foreheads. 

When I first arrived in Varanasi, I was most surprised by the amount of movement that is able to inhabit small places. The people, the livestock, the automobiles and rickshaws, not competing for space but sharing it. I was afraid that I could never find a place in this dastardly environment. I was convinced that there was no room for me and my western clothes and naivety. I could not communicate. I could not drink the water. I could not navigate the winding streets. This place did not belong to me. It belonged to the screaming children with large brown eyes and the trinket vendors, the royal cow and water buffalo and the women in pearlescent silks. Not to me.

What was unrecognizable at first glance was the organization behind the chaos. The unwritten rules that conduct the symphony of noise and motion. I, being so accustomed to the comforts of home, at first failed to see the kindness in strangers' faces, the regality of of hand-built homes, the vibrancy of the plastic, rubber, flora, garbage, and mud being thrust at us, sold to us, and splashed onto our ankles when the monsoons flood the streets. I failed to hear sincerity in the language of honking cars, to acknowledge the existence of textile shops hidden behind the backdoors of grimy alleys, to understand the regional ecological significance of spiders the size of my hand. (This one I'm still working on.)

However, after several days, these things, and many more have invited me to surrender to Antony's Advice. In order to accept what India has to offer, I had to surrender to her. I had to shed off my fears and preconceptions and preoccupation with forgetting to take Malaria pills, and bow a naked, vulnerable knee to this magnificent country. It was only after I realized this that I fully opened my eyes. And that my luggage appeared at my doorstep.

In "The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel," a film set in India that I happened to watch on a plane, the main characters are offered similar advice. "India hits you like a wave," they are told. "If you resist, you will be knocked down. But if you dive into it, you will be alright." 

At last, I can say with confidence that I have taken that dive into the dirty water.

Jane Huffman

Raja Ghat

Yesterday  we wound through another part of Benares to a beautiful building by Raja Ghat. The little lanes were not as busy as the main road, on our way there. When we arrived... I didn't want to move an inch. The place holds a stillness until one sees what about it is moving. It will be the first time we perform in a real courtyard, which sits in the center of the building, a soft, sunny sanctuary. --have to stay in the shade most of the time, though, so as not to get dehydrated. My favorite part was standing on the roof before rehearsal. The stone is old and the walls are painted pink. We could see a lot. The Ganga looks big and grey, even at this lowest of its waterlines. We saw men doing laundry, women chatting on the ghat, folding a green sari. One pilgrim in a pink sari was standing and looking at the river. There were lots of, I don't know, pilgrims and other travelers on both sides of the river. And since we were so high up, we saw roofs and walls and windows and advertisements and all the other sources of color and line and shape stretching off on both sides. A garden to the left and construction workers moving maroon bricks around a blue yard on the right. Everyone just doing their thing. Even though I don't understand or remember everything I see (who ever does?), this is some of what I like best :  standing in the breeze and looking.
Fiona Carey

Raja Ghat Rehearsal

Friends,

Many wonderful things occurred today.... this morning we were greeted with amazing press coverage from 7 newspapers in India - (we will post pics soon on the Flickr to share coverage, bonus points for those who read Hindi).  After breakfast, we traveled to the beautiful Raj Ghat, where we had our first rehearsal within the courtyard of a 19th century monastery, with views from the roof of the Ganges.  Upon returning back to Nirman for lunch, our missing baggage for 7 of our team members arrived!  After lunch, we enjoyed a great discussion about our experience of performing the play, and later were able to go for a shopping experience and dinner on the town before heading back to the center.  Thanks for staying with us....

Team Kahani

Anya Opshinsky

     It’s my first play outside of the United States and it was a success! Everything was going as planned it felt safe and normal until suddenly we got to the first abstract scene, and for the first time I looked straight out into the audience and realized again that we were half way across the world performing for an entirely unfamiliar group of people.  Families, people of all ages, a sea full of beautifully colored Saris.  It was a thrilling realization and rejuvenated my desire to bring our story to life with all the meaning and energy that it is capable of sharing. During the talk back one of the audience members stood up and asked how we knew so much about Indian culture. He was impressed by our portrayal of traditional Indian family relationships and traditions. I was floored. The group had spent many evenings discussing people’s possible reactions, what might be offensive or assumptive.  That man’s comment brought us to the beautiful realization that people are happy to assume the best of your intensions and appreciate your interest if you act with compassion and respect. 

Cameron Schneberger

     After we cleaned our trays after breakfast, Ed covered the dining table with the newspaper articles about Kahani, each one with picture. “Cameron look! There you are. And there you are again!” There were a total of seven papers that covered our first performance. It was overwhelming and kind of funny given the difficulty of getting our own college newspaper to feign interest and write a decent article when we performed it in Kalamazoo College. I feel a little bit like a celebrity. When people ask us why we’re here I can’t help but feel quite glamorous when I say, “I’m an actor. I’m here to perform.” Aside from that, I’m getting driven around the city, people keep giving me chi tea and now I’ve got at least seven newspaper articles about me.

     Most of the time I don’t feel glamorous, I feel humbled. Today after carrying our props through a maze-like thin cobblestone streets, carrying our props and avoiding herds of water buffalo, we came to our second performance space: a large 200 plus year old building with a gorgeous courtyard. It looked just like the pictures in my Eyewitness: India book I owned when I was little. On the roof of the building you could see the entire city wrapped around the edge of the ganga. It was one of the most beautiful views I’d ever seen. After staring for about fifteen minutes some words finally escaped my mouth. “I want to paint this.”  

First Performance Complete!

Friends,

Today we had our first performance at Gyan Pravah.  We have a few "snapshots" from students below, and, we will try to get some more posts and pictures up soon.  We have not had internet since arrival, which has made posting pictures impossible, and made sending updates very brief.  Look for more (we hope) tomorrow.

Team Kahani

Sam Bertken

     When we hit the road for the cultural center where we would be premiering our first presentation of Kahani, a traffic disaster struck.  For the most part, there is a general consensus among the group that the prospect of getting behind the wheel of a car or motorcycle in Varanasi is a suicidal notion (Lanny notably excluded).  However, this particular situation rivaled any experience we’d had so far on the road.  Our bus came to an intersection where there was a particularly packed traffic jam, owed mostly to a crane machine that had gone kaput—there was literally black smoke spiraling out of it.

     People were flooding the street, shouting at the driver different suggestions, auto-rickshaws darted around the mess, trying to pass through, a tractor pulled up between us and the road we intended to drive down; all the while the heat was pushing every liquid every liquid in our body out.  Eventually, we were forced to evacuate the bus and hoof it to the cultural center to start rehearsal.  The bus arrived over an hour later.  Needless to say, the refreshing air conditioning literally gave us a new wind to start rehearsal in earnest.

Jane Huffman

Three Days in Varanasi~Initial Images

     Bare feet, peeling mangoes with sticky fingers, crumbling red brick, large black cows with pedestrian right-of-way, brittle clay cups, young girls in freshly pressed school uniforms, smooches of red stage makeup on the rims of water bottles, yellow linen rippling in windows, deet and sunscreen, embroidery, monsoon rains speckling the windshields of auto rickshaws, underpants that never dry, the exchange of small colorful bills, deep-fried batter bubbling in scalding honey, a secret language of automotive honking, giant spiders with ulterior motives, the clapping of a generator, black starless night skies, friendly contemplative locals who tell me I’m beautiful, wafts of garbage and cumin and sweat and sweet flowers, goats on ghats and ghosts and gods, submitting to our surroundings, snuggling with sweating friends, a city of art, a city of color, and city of astonishing attention to detail.

Fiona Carey

     The sun sets early here, and all at once. When we came back from our first show, and clambered out of the yellow Nirman schoolbus, the whole campus seemed golden. I’ve been inside for every other sunset so far, and I wonder if it does that every night, the way in winter in Michigan there’s that narrow slice of the day as the sun fades and the blue makes the sky and the snow one thing.  I feel like that’s this trip—a narrow slice of time full of beautiful light. I have to remember not to look at my feet so much that I forget to see it! We have been on a few walks in the city so far, and I can cross the street. You just have to take a big breath and walk forward!

     Our first performance was charged with a lot of nerves, both theatrical and cultural. There were a lot of broad grins afterward as we all mingled, chai-shloshed, in the breezy, verdant gardens of the cultural center. 

Moments Away From First Performance

We are moments away from our first performance at Gyan Praveh! We hope to send some updates about our experiences soon... Wish us luck! All the best to our friends... Team Kahani

Rehearsal at Gyan Pravah.

We have begun our rehearsal at Gyan Pravah. A beautiful place!

We are here!

We have all arrived safely in Varanasi. Our hosts have been wonderful. We have just finished dinner, and we are all very much looking forward to some sleep after 3 days of travel. In the morning, after breakfast, we will get a small tour of the immediate area, and then begin to rehearse at Gyan Pravah to prepare for our first performance. (just one day away on Wednesday!). Many of us are missing baggage - along with costumes and props - but all is well, we are in good spirits, and we are excited to be here! With a bit of luck we should be able to upload some pictures of our day tomorrow. Thanks for being a part of our journey. Team Kahani

Team Delhi Update

Hello everyone!

Team Delhi (consisting of Anya, Alden, Kat, Ed, Jaime and me, Sam) got in late last night.  While some of our luggage was lost and Jaime's hand had a minor run-in with a smart cart, we are in generally good spirits this morning.  As harrowing as the bus trip from the airport last night seemed at times, the comfortable beds, hot shower and delicious breakfast (potatoes, tomatoes, beans, bread, croissants-- all kind of continental action) has more than made up for the Kafka nightmare that yesterday was turning into.

We will reconvene with Team Mumbai when we arrive in Varanasi.  Our flight is confirmed from the Kalamazoo CIP and we will be departing 10 for the airport and then flying out a few hours later.

Nice and muggy here!  All the best from India as we continue our travels to Banaras.
Sam Bertken

Hello from Mumbai?

Our group is in good spirits and getting ready to arrive in Varanasi! One group will be departing from Delhi to arrive in Varanasi Monday afternoon. Our second group - this picture - is from our group getting ready to leave Mumbai to arrive in Varanasi Monday morning. We will send an update tomorrow evening when we are all gathered in Varanasi. Thanks for joining us for our journey. The Kahani Team

Safely departing O'Hare.

All. We have all arrived at our departure gate at ORD and are awaiting the first leg of our journey to Frankfurt! Warm wishes to all our friends! The Kahani Team.

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

Hey.  Check out the new video by Zac Clark found in the Page Resources navigation column to the right.  Nice work Zac!

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