Murali Cheeroth's workshop

The KIPAF – 15 is prefaced by a three day performance art workshop by Murali Cheeroth that started

from 19th January. One of the basic activities of the workshop involved breathing exercises that would

open a way to understand our bodies and their potential to transform the performance space. It was an

experience of self-rediscovery for most of us. Another aspect of the workshop was the sound that could

be produced through breathing. In this process the bodies were attempted to be opened inside out.

Producing sound scape inspired from or referred to personal memory and its relation with history, the

historicity of the language of articulating such sound was an exercise that created a sublime feel to the

space. Another sublime experience is the stretching exercise that also involved producing sound through

breathing. We as bodies lay down on the floor and stretched and pulled each other’s bodies holding

hands. It looked as if it was a whole, organic form, comprised of multiple breathing bodies. The

workshop has warmed up the momentum to the festival and a bright hope to experience an energy that

would resonate with the unopened thought and spaces and bring them to articulation.

"In the three days time span,murali da engaged the pi members into the very fundamental phenomena and the reflection upon the unstructured nature of performance art.The question of the presentation of the body and its intervention with the space,the moment up to where the body rippels imense energy and compassion. Gathering at one of our friends house on the first day,murali da was keen to mold us into our discoverd self of being, a being which helps know one self,knowing even against the will of others and hence reopening of self.a constant focus on the way we release and redirect our body against the distraction of a foriegn gaze.an intervention of our ownselves.but it doesnot end here.it further demands of those intervening selves to become into a singular structure at the same time space and dimension.where bodies forget there egoistic identity,the mind relates with one another and become a strongly created conception(the bodies) which is free of inhibition,yet intimately sensitive to touch,smell, breathe,audibility and unbounded imagination. the given or the found space becomesthe sight of imagination. with slower and then unanimous claps murali da formed a place of compassion,where every body stood in a circle primarily and slowly started moving ,balancing the space and the distance of the bodies and the gaze. our bound,rustic,steep bodies slowly found its way in the array of movement and audibility.a result of the collaborating bodies. while talking about space,it must be said that at some point we faced a limitation when on the second day we found a proposed venue for our workshop.we were gradually told to lower our pitches and hence kind of creating a subduetion.but not to worry my friends,the city yet has enough spaces for our bodies to be left free. while we talk about movement and its engagement,our workshop put open that our imagination gains ground in our material existence and that nothing springs up spontaniously, but that it is the out come of the carefully thought mind and the consciousness The time and moment where in a hollow space the body and its memory is worked through the language of history and created out in our imagined sense of sound,and movement. " BRITHA CHESHTA RAKHI DAO. STOBDHO NIROBOTA APONI TULIBE GORI APONAR KOTHA." on a very small note,we on behalf of performers independent extend our warm greeting and love to murali da and look forward in engaging into further workshop,like a developing seed of immense hope.also we thank our documentation team,sanyukta sharma and anirban dutta.and i send a long thread of kisses and a hearful of imagined space to my pi friends.(uma,taufik,chimuk,tapati,santosh,rituporna,rahul,suman ka,mozo,suman,shahjahan,partho,bukan,)" Aopala Bannerjee