Why Performance Art?

By Kurchi Dasgupta (an Indian artist and writer based in Kathmandu)

Two longstanding organizations of repute -- ASMITA and Action Aid International Nepal (AAIN) --
organized a conference earlier this month to facilitate discussion and interaction on issues of
pressing relevance for a ‘gender-just egalitarian society’ in Nepal and its new Constitution. Called
Women’s Conference for Identity, Power and Transformation, the program had hundreds of
participants and attendees from different walks of life – academia, literature and the arts and most
importantly, organizations actively engaged in tackling gender issues. It successfully raised and
addressed a number of questions of vital importance to the women’s movement and gender justice
in Nepal through talks and discussion. This article focuses on one particular ‘art performance’ that
was performed by artivist Ashmina Ranjit and her team of eleven young art students at the end of
the inaugural event and which addressed some of the same issues, but through a different medium.

Now what exactly is ‘performance art’? By performance we still think of theater acting – where
actors act out a story while the audience empathize with the make-believe, fully knowing that it is
make-believe, and leave the performance after having released the emotional build-up in their
systems. Theater is all about conventions – it is played out either through a reiteration or a
resistance to these conventions. The stage is an obvious example, whose presence is vital – and even
its absence, in case of the very avant garde or experimental theater -- is a prerequisite for play
acting. Performances, on the other hand, can happen at unexpected places and moments,
sometimes without warning. Art galleries or museums are the usual suspects, but it can happen
anywhere -- suddenly in open public spaces, or in seminars and conferences – as it did at the
women’s conference.

As the proceedings came to a halt with the announcement that a performance was about to take
place, our eyes were drawn to the activity at the far end of the conference space. A massive imprint
of an eye -- or is it the vagina? – lay on the floor, created with luminous, dry red and yellow
pigments. Young women began streaming out of a far doorway, clad in shiny red cloths wrapped
around their bodies. The cloth clung to their forms unapologetically, in silent jubilation of youth,
femininity and a disregard for social conventions. They spread out around the pigment vagina, taking
up positions. Two sat with their backs to each other and a mask hid the top half of one’s face as she
began beating an ancient, primal rhythm on a dhime. An older woman approached the ritual site
next – for by now the tableau has taken on an obviously ritualistic aura. We recognize her as
Ashmina. She is dressed differently, in an opulent red dress whose frills and waist-accentuating belt
visually reinforce a mature, child-bearing vessel. Not a word is spoken and the audience gasps as
she, upon reaching the pigment imprint on the floor, relieves herself of her white undergarment.
She proceeds to wrap herself in a length of red satin, whose obvious resonance with menstrual
blood, feminine sexuality, fertility and child birth is inescapable.

The audience (a mixed one, but the ratio favouring women) is bewildered. And then, one feels a
change -- the energy suddenly turns electric! You can feel they are up to the challenge, ready to
experience the audacious visualizations, ready to start making the inevitable connections between
the vagina, the red satin, the discarded undergarment and Ashmina being slowly rendered immobile
by her self-spun web of red. Her face, her eyes and mouth are covered too by the red satin veins
that almost chain her up and choke her mute with ‘societal values of patriarchy that prohibits
discussions concerning such topics” (quoted from the leaflet distributed beforehand). She tries to
pull herself free but falls to the floor, apparently unconscious. Nobody seems to doubt the fact that
the woman in front of our eyes is a real, living person not an actor playing out the social pressures
and taboos that a woman has to deal with in Nepali society. And the dhime plays on. There is a
sudden movement – papiere maché cocoons that were lying on the floor, quite still, begins to jerk
about and more young women emerge and crawl towards the fallen queen. They get to their feet
and spread out across the conference hall, among the participants and the audience. Two sit
together, rolling up piles of red wool strongly reminiscent of blood and the umbilical chord, even
veins. One goes and sits in front of a mirror, desperately putting on makeup – dissatisfied with her
own efforts, she gets more and more violent, even frenzied. One young woman is roaming about,
muttering questions to herself -- why is it that women are not equal? Is she not a human being too?
Why is it that her identity is always derived from other males in the family, in society? Her voice
grows louder, the muttering becomes a wail as she moves in a trance through the audience. The
audience heaves and mutters in assent and make way for her driven form to pass through – she
streaks out of the room finally, her wail now a wild scream asking for freedom. The audience, which
only a few minutes ago had been seated primly at a conference, listening to speeches, have by now
turned into a seething mass of repressed fury and pain. The girl who ran out screaming had become
a knife opening barely concealed wounds in our minds, wounds some of us had been carrying all our
lives.

But it is not over. Yet another young woman is already going about, inviting onlookers to write on
her bare skin – every ‘writer’ receives a genuine embrace afterwards. By the time she reaches me,
most of whatever is visible of her body beyond the red wrapper is covered in heart signs and
messages of love. Tears roll down her cheeks as she looks into the eyes of each. As she reaches out
and hugs an elderly woman of serious demeanor, the woman breaks down, sobbing uncontrollably.
And the sobbing spreads to others. This is not theatrics. This is not drama. This is immediate,
spontaneous, two-way emotional response that no pre-scripted play can hope to achieve.

A good performance does not usually have a story, or a linear narrative. And as Ashmina Ranjit and
her eleven co-performers proved that day, for performance art the convention is transgression of
boundaries. A truly successful performance will aim to ‘transform’ and not end at Aristotelian
catharsis or Natyashastra’s aesthetic, emotional engagement. It is a rite of passage in which the
performer tries to transform the passive viewers into active participators and if possible, reconfigure
old, set ideas. It is almost like a ritual for there is no illusion in the theatrical sense – every act is self-
contained in its meaning and symbolic potential and is embedded in the ‘real.’ But at the same time
it is also antithetical to ritual -- because the very repetition of the same actions can throw into
question beliefs and norms that govern our lives, unfairly or irrationally.

What is it that gave Celeberating the Feminine Force such an explosive quality? The fact that the
liminal (or the in-process stage of a ritual) space occupied by the young art students seemed to
expand and include us in the audience as we actively participated in deciphering their non-rational
language and applying it to our lives? That we came face to face with our own sexuality and the
subtle or overt repressions we allow in our lives to lead ‘normal’ social lives?
Interestingly, the ‘self-styled grandmother’ of performance art, Marina Abramovic has shared in an
interview, “I also take the energy from the audience and transform it. It goes back to them in a
different way…a powerful performance will transform everyone in the room.’ As a performer (as
opposed to an actor) enters the zone of performance, s/he also enters a space and process of
becoming that tries to convert the usually unwilling viewers. The bottomline is, it tries to make a
difference through participation and not just passive consumption.

This performance ended with Ashmina going up on stage and saying forcefully, ‘I know. I know. I
know who I am and where I am going’. Simple words. But the conscious decision taken by a woman
to declare in public that she knows her own desires, is fully aware of her identity and is sure of her
future course of actions is an act that explodes the myth of feminine vulnerability in the face of
patriarchal authority. Enunciating that one simple sentence is still unthinkable for many of us.
Ashmina managed to raise questions, address issues – especially those of sexuality -- and involve the
audience in a remarkably effective manner, giving an immediate dimension to the conference
organizers’ avowal that they hope to redirect ‘Nepali women’s movement to a newer height’ and
‘explore ways to improve women’s position in Nepal.’

Incidentally, the performers were seen weeping, throwing up and shivering in the ‘greenroom’ long
after the performance was over. As one of the spectators/participants, all I can say is -- their artwork
still resonates in my mind.

Celebrating Feminine Force was performed by Sabita Dangol, Shashi Maharjan, Ratina
Bajracharya, Binu Lama, Sabita Pariyar, Kabita Rai, Ambika Nepali, Dikhsya Shah, Maya
Sunar, Geeta Raut, Prasun Rai and Ashmina Ranjit.