A consideration of the final target audience and the integration of feedback from non-target audiences
The incorporation of an aesthetic that would not give one story more importance than another (like fragmentation)
Previous: Outcomes from Cages and MKMZ
IFF Kashmir and the fragmented narrative
The fragmented narrative can function as political action in many ways: It can resist traditional academic systems, which may acknowledge alternate ways of knowing but nonetheless continue to lock sociological inquiry into normative forms that serve to reify the traditional system itself. (Markham 2005, 815–16)
Speaking to the potential of fragmented narratives to create reflexivity for spectators and creators alike, Annette Markham (2005, 815–16) extrapolates that ‘juxtaposition and fragmentation help authors see – through disjuncture – their own habits of interpretation, to reveal, or at least question, taken-for-granted patterns of sense making’. Fragmented narratives, therefore, seem to allow for an approach to argumentation and aesthetic creation that is not locked into a ‘single line’ and, in so doing, ‘multiplicity is made more possible’ (ibid., 816). Since power functions differently in fragmented narratives as opposed to in its more linear/sequential counterparts, such performances ‘can simultaneously make the author’s particular set of arguments and allow for alternatives by revealing the practices at work in the interpretive process’ (ibid.). The application of such a fragmentation is also substantiated by what Roland Barthes (1977) calls ‘the death of the author’; a framework in which the traditional role and power of the ‘Author-God’ (or Playwright/Director-God in this case) is challenged. Although Barthes’s essay discusses the relationship between a reader and the author of a text, there is an obvious link to be made to how a fragmented narrative is likely to enable a multidimensional space in which the director – the mainland Indian outsider, in this case – is no longer ‘God’. With these considerations in mind, a fragmented approach presented itself as both an ethical and an aesthetic strategy through which a non-Kashmiri theatre maker (such as myself) could create a less biased or unbiased work about Kashmir’s conflicts. The attempt to craft one fragmented performance piece, such as IFF Kashmir, also seemed to contain the potential for a rich intertextuality to emerge: from the outcomes of theatre workshops/performances to that which was gleaned from my own autoethnographic insights; from information contained in publicly available archival materials to knowledge that was shared in more private encounters.
However, since what is said/available about narratives in Kashmir always needs to be considered alongside that which is unsaid/silenced, I also benefited from considering the role of fiction in my efforts to grapple with ‘balance’. The tension between reality and fiction has been widely considered in the realm of documentary theatre, where ‘creating performances from edited archival material can both foreground and problematize the nonfictional even as it uses actors, memorized dialogue, condensed time, precise staging, stage sets, lighting, costumes, and the overall aesthetic structuring of theatrical performance’ (Martin 2006, 10). Therefore, although this process of merging fact and fiction is often murky, ‘documentary theatre creates its own aesthetic imaginaries while claiming a special factual legitimacy’ (Martin 2006, 10). Thus, when Harold Pinter (quoted in Hughes 2007, 151) calls for a distinction between a citizen’s quest for ‘truth’ in opposition to falsehood and an artist’s approach to the nexus between truth and falsehood,1 he is furthered by the likes of Debra Kalmanowitz (2013, 38), who suggest that ‘the closer we get to fiction and multiplicity the closer we sometimes are to the truth’. In a similar vein, Sundar Sarukkai (2007, 1409) speaks to the importance of fiction, saying, ‘if anthropology is willing to go beyond this Other it constructs and into recognising its function as answering the ethical call of the other, then we will have to address the relevance of fiction as ethnographic data’. Sarukkai is backed up by Cynthia Oznick (quoted in McNiff 2013, 33), who says, ‘with regard to works of literature representing the Holocaust’ that the ‘rights of fiction are not the rights of history’. Oznick (in ibid.) uses this postulation as a springboard to critique those who accuse artistic works that deviate from dominant narratives of falsifying or delegitimising history, by asking, ‘Why should the make-believe people in novels be obliged to concur with history, or to confirm to it?’
In beginning to write/adapt IFF Kashmir, I therefore decided to work with the aesthetic strategies of the fragmented narrative and fiction so as to include additional dimensions for ‘balance’ and to nuance my considerations of affect. Then, with these aesthetic strategies chosen, there were two more questions that I had to consider before I began to write IFF Kashmir: what kind of affect did I want to leave my audiences with and, also, who would my audiences be?
IFF Kashmir and affect
The fact that, in and of itself, affect has no point is its critical point of departure, and if the fact that there ‘is no point to it’ offends those who seek clear prescriptions, end goals or fixed visions, the response must be that no change is possible without enthusiasm, commitment and a passionate sense of the possibility of a better life. (Thompson 2009, 128)
Extrapolating upon the potential of affect, Thompson (2009, 111) states that by avoiding ‘the anticipation or extraction of meaning as the primary impulse of an applied theatre process’, theatre practitioners/researchers in places of war might come to realise that ‘working with affect awakens individuals to possibilities beyond themselves without an insistence on what the experience is – what meanings should be attached’. While this insistence on affect could be seen as an excuse to absolve theatre-in-war practitioners from having to provide clear articulations for the repercussions of their work, Thompson (2009, 182) clarifies that ‘starting from affect does not mean a flight from clear statements or a fierce denunciation of acts of injustice – but grounds it in our humility and lack of superiority’. Perhaps then, it would be appropriate to consider this, as Michael Balfour (2009, 356) does, as an intentional move away from ‘the need for change rhetoric, impact assessments and the strain for verifiable measurements in defining applied theatre’, placing an emphasis instead on research that generates ‘propositions about how theatre actually works’: a statement that resonates with IFF Kashmir in my desire to generate propositions about how theatre might operate within the grey zones of Kashmir.
Speaking of the potential of this uncertain terrain in the context of applied theatre, Helen Nicholson (2005, 24) states that this ‘gift of theatre’ has the potential to dislodge ‘fixed and uneven boundaries of “self” and “other” [and] produce open-ended, reciprocal relationships that support participants’ identifications with a range of subject positions’. Furthering Nicholson’s proposal, Jenny Hughes (2011, 163) reiterates a move away from a ‘homogeneity of exchange’, asking instead for a generosity in which ‘the gift becomes associated with shifting roles, spontaneity, desire, loss and risk’, thus creating a reciprocity that can ‘be perceived as a provocation to theatre practitioners to place uncertainty at the centre of their encounters with participants’ (ibid., 160). In this spirit, IFF Kashmir seeks to maintain a deliberate balance between doubt and clarity and, although some might see this lack of certainty as being disingenuous or insufficiently rigorous, I have come to consider uncertainty to in ‘no way [imply] resignation’ (Thompson 2003, 22–23). Instead, the importance of doubt and uncertainty – in the provocation of affect – is seen to be potentially IFF Kashmir’s strength. This is an approach that Amartya Sen (2006, 122) also substantiates, drawing from Sir Francis Bacon: for Sen, doubts have the double use of guarding us against errors and of ‘initiating and furthering a process of inquiry, which can have the effect of enriching our understanding’ of ‘issues that “would have [otherwise] been passed by lightly without intervention”’. Ultimately, my uncertain and uncomfortable positioning that emphasises the grey zones of practice is affect-centred and IFF Kashmir is underpinned by the idea that ‘the pursuit of discomfort rather than joy [might be] a more productive – even ethical – path” (Edmondson 2009, 82).
IFF Kashmir’s audience
A final consideration in the creation of an affective, fragmented, semi-fictional, and grey zones–focussed piece like IFF Kashmir involved a framing of who the target audience of such work might be. Would it perhaps be more appropriate, ethically and pedagogically, for a cross-community piece that also gives voice to ‘perpetrators’ to be focused toward a non-Kashmiri audience rather than a Kashmiri one? Would a performance of Kashmir’s grey zones outside the region lead to less problematic ‘webs of significance’ (Thompson 2003, 70)? I have come to think that ‘webs of significance’ outside Kashmir might be less problematic as a result of a cross-community performance since the creation of new and unpredictable networks of ‘social energy’ within Kashmir contains the risk of being dangerous (Thompson 2003, 70). An example of possibly dangerous ‘social energy’ might be seen in an instance after Cages, when I received a phone call from an Armed Forces’ colonel who had been one of the spectator-participants in a performance. The colonel mentioned that he had been receiving phone calls from ‘suspicious’ numbers after his visit to our performance and since Cages was the only event during which he had handed over his mobile phone (to the artists for safekeeping during the performance), the colonel wanted to know whether any members of the ensemble might have tampered with his phone. While he was quick to accept my defence of the theatre company’s integrity, this conversation revealed the tenuous nature of the ‘social energy’ that Cages inspired – one that could have, quite easily, led to negative outcomes for my colleagues. Creating ‘webs of significance’, especially vis-à-vis cross-community links, thus comes with immense unpredictability and risk in a time and place of war.
This possibility of risk eventually led me to consider that perhaps the most appropriate target audience for a cross-community performance that involves narratives of both ‘victims’ and ‘perpetrators’ would be one that is located outside Kashmir, in mainland India. This target audience presents the possibility for an inculcation of ‘fresh marks’ that are made between people and groups (Thompson 2003, 70), but without the baggage of living in the conflict zone itself. The ramifications of creating art as an outsider for a target audience living within that context might be seen in Shoot/Get Treasure/Repeat, which speaks to the birth of a nation. In this nation:
a team of ‘artist-facilitators’ arrive in a ruined city, overwhelmed by their own personal crises but full of good intentions to heal the war-affected citizens of the city through the dance, art, writing and performance-installation workshops. In the final moments of the play the artists coerce a blind woman whose tongue has been cut out into participating in an art workshop: ‘tell us your story – please tell us of your pain and struggle so that art can be made and the healing can begin.’ (Ravenhill quoted in Hughes 2011, 122)
Showing an audience of Kashmiris the perspectives of Militants/Ex-militants/the Armed Forces might well encapsulate the irony of the blind woman in the example above, where the justified response of many spectators becomes, Why are you showing us what we already know? Therefore, could some of the more contentious outcomes that have emerged from Cages and MKMZ suggest that IFF Kashmir might best be performed outside Kashmir, in mainland India?
Furthermore, what implications might such a choice of target audience have on how ‘balance’ manifests in IFF Kashmir? Could it be that ‘balance’ in such a process will mean workshopping the piece with various audience groups in Kashmir and actively involving their feedback in the development of what is ultimately shown outside the region? Would such a ‘balancing’ of ideas during the creative process enable the identification of biases that will otherwise escape my notice before IFF Kashmir is taken to parts of mainland India? And if the piece is still deemed to be ‘unbalanced’ in some way – by Kashmiri and/or non-Kashmiri audiences – what are the risks for my co-creators and myself? These are questions with which I continue to grapple.
Framed by these many evolving ideas, ‘balance’ in IFF Kashmir came to mean a lot more than a reduction/absence of bias in whose narratives were included in the piece. Rather, ‘balance’ came to mean the complex interaction of multiple elements: