Description

Target Audience: for 12+ ages

Duration: 65 minutes

Synopsis 

In the dangerous and magical land of the Sunderbans – the vast forested delta area in West Bengal (eastern India) and Bangladesh where great rivers combine and split before merging into the Bay of Bengal, a region of extreme ecological and environmental vulnerability - living is about a fragile balance between land and water, forest and field, domestic and wild, human and human, human and non-human, calm and storm. As each stakes claim, as each encroaches upon the other’s space, how does life manage?

Stories and beliefs form essential anchors for the people of the Sunderban, with the ‘Bonbibi’ legend looming large in the popular imagination. Bonbibi is said to have come to the ‘Land of the 18 Tides’ to help the people, the tigers, the deer, the crabs, the trees… all beings that cohabit the land. But, only if we agree to her terms. And when she looks away, devastation follows! Episodes from this legend as well as everyday aspects of Sunderban life are depicted by the traditional and contemporary doll-makers of Sunderban. Maati Katha (Earth Stories) brings these dolls – originally used for worship, child’s play and display – into the theatre for the first time, combining these art and craft traditions with contemporary object and material theatre practices. The play brings alive the Sunderbans through these clay dolls and the shape-shifting ‘maati’ (clay, mud, soil, earth, land) that not only forms the dolls, but also defines the land and grounds the philosophy of the region. In doing so, Maati Katha invites us to celebrate human resilience in the midst of fragility – a resilience that enables diverse communities to hold together through repeated upheavals of natural calamity and human violence. Bonbibi’s philosophy reigns, ‘You are all connected: the crocodile, the tiger, water, forest, land, all human beings … All!’

Production Credit

Presented by Tram Arts Trust, India

Produced by Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society for ‘Voices From South Programme 2023’.

Curated by Pickle Factory Dance Foundation, Kolkata.

• Manmathanagar Dolls Created by: Doll Artists Dinesh Mondol, Subol Mondol, Naresh Das, Ronojeet Sarkar from Manmathanagar, Gosaba, Sunderbans

• Co-Directed & Performed by: Choiti Ghosh & Mohd. Shameem 

• Playwright: Manjima Chatterjee

• Production Manager & Lighting: Abhisar Bose

• Sound: Ruma Ghosh

• Hindi Translation: Kapil Pandey

• Dramaturgy & Content Guidance: Poulomi Das

• Research Support: Sharvari Sastry, Ruma Ghosh, Ashish Ghosh

• Music Direction: Mihir Basu, supported by Ashish Ghosh

• Vocals: Choiti Ghosh, Ashish Ghosh, Mihir Basu

• Percussion: Adhir Das, Shyamal Majhi

Artist Profile

Tram Arts Trust, based in Mumbai-New Delhi is India's first dedicated Object Theatre company. We are dedicated to the study, evolution and propagation of object theatre, that finds expression from the cultural histories, objects and contexts of India. Our creations include Nostos (2011), Bird's Eye View (2011), Alice in Wonderland (2013), Objects in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear (2014), Dhaaba (2016), Oool (2018), Khidkiyaan (2020), and Maati Katha (2023). As part of our commitment to building object theatre practices in India, we conduct workshops for young people, provide mentorship, and run training programmes for theatre professionals, educators and arts-based practitioners. During the pandemic we also began to support practitioners through micro-grants. Our festivals and museum-based engagements are designed to proactively build audience sensibilities towards experiencing ordinary objects as carriers of memories, histories and living cultures. Our work has been presented at festivals, museums, educational institutions and venues accross India and abroad.

https://tramarts.org/

@tramartstrust