“Notes on Chai” is a collection of snippets of everyday conversations inter woven with abstract sound explorations that attempt to relocate our relationship with the everyday .The abstract sound explorations are inspired by Tibetan chanting, Western Harmonics and Extended vocal techniques .
The piece attempts to explore the inner and outer landscape of individual lives bringing forth the immediacy, humour and pathos of the everyday through metaphors created with the body, voice and text. While images, stories and segments work with singular details, the collage attempts to create a collective experience of life in big cities through a series of images and conversations simultaneously in the everyday world and at the edge of it.
Jyoti Dogra is a theatre practitioner based in Mumbai. She has been devising, directing and performing original works, that are strongly invested in the body, exploring physical and vocal (sound) imagery, with only minimal design support. Her work looks at life in big cities, working with metaphors created with the body, voice and text. Her past works have been supported by the India Foundation for the Arts (Bangalore) the Goethe Institut (New Delhi), Prohelvetia ( New Delhi ) and the Saison Foundation, (Tokyo). Other than making solo works, i have collaborated on a performance based on Noh theatre with the Japanese theatre company ARICA and on a multimedia theatre piece with german film maker Bernd Luetzeler. She recently directed a devised piece “Toye” based on Fire and the Rain by Girish Karnad.
Her theatre practice is inspired by the actor’s processes in the Grotowski tradition, and her training in Yoga, Kathakali and Seraikela Chau. Her works have been showcased in all major cities in India as well as outside, in Singapore, Tokyo, New York, Washington DC, and Ohio
“Notes on Chai” will be performed in at the Southbank Centre (London), Manchester, Denmark, Zurich, Berlin and Wroclaw over the next few months.
