Lara Sinangil
Senior A&E Writer
This Friday, Jyothi Dogra will perform the production Notes on Chai at 7 p.m. in the Shoolroy Theater. Notes on Chai is considered “a one woman show,” and is written, produced, choreographed and directed by Dogra. Producer of the piece The Doorway, she has collaborated with noted video artist Bernd Lützeler, and has acted in various Bollywood films throughout her career. Although the production has been performed in many parts of the world for over a year, it is still a work in progress. Dogra has been slowly tweaking and modifying her production since its opening in August 2013.
The meat of the show focuses on the everyday conversations of the “urban Indian middle class.” The performance consists of the small talk that occurs between neighbors, colleagues, passengers on the bus, and at family gatherings that constitute typical interactions in everyday life. Dogra does not intend for the audience to decipher the deeper meaning between these conversations, but rather to take note of the characters’ inner struggles, how these problems affect their interaction with others, their overall “sense of self.” The problems her characters face are struggles that are meant to represent an example of Indian society as a whole. She particularly focuses on the conflicts Indian women must often endure, and their perspective of navigating through a male dominated Indian society. She further explains in her program notes, “since the attempt of the characters is to constantly conceal rather than reveal their vulnerable struggling selves, attempting to portray a happy, contented image of themselves, their failure continually speaks of dual realities that are in turn conflicting demands of the urban working woman.”
The overall production is a mix of daily, routine interactions combined with the use of intangible depictions of sound. These “abstract sound explorations” that she refers to in her notes were influenced by Western harmonics and techniques she learned during her time in Switzerland in 2012, when she worked with Western overtone singer and composer Dana Stratil. Dogra was further influenced by Tibetan Monks of the Gyuto Sect in Dharamsala, India, who use a technique similar to Mongolian throat singing when praying. According to Dogra, these unique sounds are meant to “act as spring boards, stretching, altering and at times disrupting the spaces and sense of time formed by the conversational sections creating a series of images and conversations simultaneously in the everyday world and at the edge of it, encouraging the spectator to attempt to relocate his/her relationship with the ordinary.”
Dogra intends for the audience to not only take in the interactions between the characters of the production, but also to relate to some of their experiences. Especially with the more abstract parts of the show, Dogra believes audiences will experience “deeply solitary experiences of engaging with the abstract aural and physical segments,” thus further connecting the piece of art to their own lives. Notes on Chai will be performed on Friday, September 5, and seats will be available on a first come, first served basis.