Maati Katha (Earth Stories)

Presented by Tram Arts Trust, India

Produced by Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society for ‘Voices From South Programme 2023’.

Curated by Pickle Factory Dance Foundation, Kolkata.

Manmathanagar Clay Dolls Created by: Doll Artists Dinesh Mondol, Subol Mondol, Naresh Das & Ronojeet Sarkar from Manmathanagar, Gosaba, Sunderban

Additional Dolls procured from: Artists Dibakar Pal & Shubhojit Pal from Narendrapur, Howrah; and Artists Lakshminarayan Chowdhury & Koyel Chowdhury, Bansberia.

Co-Directed by: Choiti Ghosh & Mohd. Shameem

Performed by: Choiti Ghosh / Mohd. Shameem

Production Management & Lights:  Abhisar Bose

On-Stage Support:   Sharvari Sastry

Playwright: Manjima Chatterjee

Hindi Translation: Kapil Pandey

Dramaturgy & Content Guidance: Poulomi Das

Research Support: Sharvari Sastry, Ruma Ghosh, Ashish Ghosh

Property & Materials Fabrication: Mohd. Shameem

Table Construction:   Subroto, Irfan, Maneesh

Music Direction: Mihir Basu, supported by Ashish Ghosh

Vocals:  Choiti Ghosh, Ashish Ghosh, Mihir Basu

Percussion: Adhir Das, Shyamal Majhi

Additional Lighting Design:  Mandar Gokhale

Songs: (see end of program for translations)
‘Deho Tori’ & ‘Majhi Baiya Jao Re’ from traditional Bhatiyali Repertoire;
‘Shobai Rohe Maatir Pore’ written by: Manjima Chatterjee;
‘Ei Jol Jongol Maati’ & ‘Shundorire Maati Kaday’ written by: Ashish Ghosh, Ruma Ghosh, Manjima Chatterjee

Documentation: Abhisar Bose, Sharvari Sastry, Poulomi Das

Still Photography: Abhisar Bose

Film Team:
Videography: Anant Raina, Devaditya Prasad, Abhisar Bose
Video Editing: Abhisar Bose

Acknowledgements: Smt. Soma Mukhopadhayay, Sh. Sagar Chattopadhyay, Sh. Pratip Bhattacharjee, Smt.Dalia Kar, Smt.Chhobi, Sh.Nihar Mondol and his excellent ferry-team, Smt. Ruma Mondol and members of Rabindra Natya Sanstha Annpur, Residents of Annpur, Satjelia; Smt. Putul Mondol, Artists and Residents of Manmathanagar, Gosaba; Residents of Kalidaspur; Artists Dibakar Pal, Shubhajit Pal, Howrah; Artist Lakshminarayan Chowdhury & Doel Chowdhury, Bansberia; Artist Mahananda Das, Gabberia; Ranjana Pandey, Ruchira Das, Anshuman, Tara, Antara, Karan Talwar, Harkat Studios, Rakhi Prasad, Joyoti Roy, Sananda Mukhopadhaya, Sameera Iyengar, Vikramjit Sinha, Dhwani Vij, Timira Gupta, Anirban Ghosh, Anant Raina, Padmanbhan, Tarif Choudhury, Sanyukta Saha, Sh.Sudeb Mitra, Smitasree Chatterjee, Tarun Chatterjee, Nitu Kumari, Ahaan, Adaa, Malhaar, Bishakha & Orchisha Basu, Rupa Lakhani, Ira Roy, Mousumi Mandal, Annu Jalais, Ashok Lal, Durba Chattaraj, Vikram Iyengar, Dana Roy, Shiv Nadar School NOIDA, Katkatha Puppet Arts Trust, WIP Labs, Pickle Factory Dance Foundation, Edinburgh Festival Fringe Society

ABOUT TRAM ARTS TRUST
Tram Arts Trust, based in Mumbai-New Delhi is India’s first dedicated Object Theatre company. They are dedicated to the study, evolution and propagation of object theatre, that finds expression from the cultural histories, objects and contexts of India. Their creations include Nostos (2011), Bird’s Eye View (2011), Alice in Wonderland (2013), Objects in the Mirror are Closer than they Appear (2014), Dhaaba (2016), Oool (2018), Khidkiyaan (2020), and Maati Katha (2023). As part of their commitment to building object theatre practices in India, they conduct workshops for young people, provide mentorship, and run training programmes for theatre professionals, educators and arts-based practitioners. During the pandemic they also began to support practitioners through micro-grants. Their festivals and museum-based engagements are designed to proactively build audience sensibilities towards experiencing ordinary objects as carriers of memories, histories and living cultures. Their work has been presented at festivals and venues accross India and abroad.

ABOUT THE PERFORMING TEAM
(Co-Director) Choiti Ghosh is an Object Theatre practitioner and the artistic director of Tram Arts Trust. Born into a family of generational theatre artists, her theatre career began early with some of India’s best-known theatre artists & puppeteers including Anil Krishna Ghosh, Habib Tanvir, Sunil Shanbag, Jana Natya Manch, Anurupa Roy, Ashish Ghosh. Following a masterclass under the renowned Belgian Object Theatre artiste Agnés Limbos at the Institut International de la Marionnette, France (2010), Choiti has since been dedicated to the study, practice & dissemination of Object Theatre in India. She is deeply interested in cultural studies and performance possibilities through and with objects. She directs & performs, facilitates trainings & mentorships for young people and adults, designs festivals & museum-based experiences and occasionally writes on object theatre. Choiti has been a researcher-in-residence at the Institut International de la Marionnette, Charleville Mezieres, France and at the Deutsches Forum fur Figurentheatre & Puppenspeikunst in Bochum, Germany. She has been invited to share her directorial practices at the Edinburgh Festival Fringe UK, ASSITEJ Germany TYA Directors’ Gathering GERMANY & Theatre Gerard Phillipe, Paris FRANCE. She was awarded the Sahitya Rangabhoomi Vinod Doshi Fellowship, 2011 and the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar for Puppetry, an award granted by Sangeet Nataka Akademi, Ministry of Culture, Govt. of India, 2016.

(Co-Director) Md. Shameem is a puppeteer and puppet designer. His journey in puppetry began at 15yrs age, first under Kapil Dev, later under leading Indian puppeteers Dadi Pudumjee & Anurupa Roy. His art of sculpting was further polished under the intense guidance of internationally renowned sculptor Shri K S Radhakrishnan. In 2023, he participated in a masterclass in Object Theatre under Yael Rasooly in Norway, thus adding Object Theatre to his repertoire. Shameem works with artists & educators around India & the world, and also runs ‘Puppetshala’ – designing puppets, directing and performing. Shameem was a recipient of the Ustad Bismillah Khan Yuva Puraskar, 2014.

(Production Management & Lights) Abhisar Bose is a Production manager and Lighting Designer for the theatre, and also a Film-maker. His initial training in theatre came under Dr. Habib Tanvir’s Naya Theatre where he worked for 5 years as the production-in-charge and stage manager. Naya Theatre took him to remote regions of India where he lived and interacted with tribal and indigenous communities giving him an understanding and interest in working at the grassroots of India. He works as the documenter for Tram’s works along with doubling up as production-in-charge for many shows from 2013 till present. He is also the lights designer and lighting operator for Maati Katha. As a film-maker he found his training under well-known Indian film directors like Sudhir Mishra and Prakash Jha. The visual language of Tram’s Object Theatre works finds a meeting ground with his cinematic eye.

(On-Stage & Research Support) Sharvari Sastry is a theatre researcher and educator. She is currently a Collegiate Assistant Professor in Theatre and Performance Studies at the University of Chicago. She has been associated with Tram since its inception in 2011, her involvement deepening in 2021 when she became part of Tram’s ethnographic research project on the ‘Doll Arts of West Bengal’, with the project’s emerging artistic and academic components including exhibitions, workshops, behind-the-scenes, laboratories, archive, and the performance ‘Maati Katha’ as research support, thinking, planning and writing partner.

CONTEXT

‘Maati Katha’ (Earth Stories) came to life as part of an ongoing ethnographic research project that documents and archives the myriad stories surrounding traditional & contemporary doll making practices of West Bengal (a state in eastern India) ~ exploring their histories, folklores, oral traditions, myths, communitarian stories, as well as stories that are contemporary, quotidian and personal ~ and linkages to tangible and intangible heritage conservation. ‘Maati Katha’ emerges from the soil. It draws inspiration from the arts, lifestyles and philosophies of one of Eastern India’s most marginalized & at-risk people – the people of the unique deltaic mangrove region of Sunderbans. The performance evolves out of Sunderban’s doll arts, people’s lives, folk legends and stories, the rich folk-performance tradition of ‘Bonbibi Jatrapala’, and music traditions like Bhatiyali, Baul, Jhumur. It marries these arts traditions to contemporary object and material theatre practices, seeking to celebrate and foreground the powerful story-carrying nature of these dolls. ‘Maati Katha’ marks a preliminary experiment in expanding the impact of the doll arts into diverse contexts, through interactions with a multitude of art forms.

AWARD (‘MAATI KATHA’)

Special Jury Award at the Chuncheon International Puppet Theatre Festival in Chuncheon, South Korea, 2024.

AUDIENCE REVIEWS

“Masterful & deeply moving storytelling brought me through layers of emotion, from delight and laughter to deep sorrow and tears….kindles deep layers of understanding and awareness of the human condition.” 
~ Karen Smith, President, UNIMA International ~

“I want to see this play again and again and I want everybody to see it… The clay as a character comes alive in front of you…I feel for each and every one of the dolls… they became real people…” 
~ Sanjna Kapoor, Arts Entrepreneur, ‘Chevaliers dans l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres’ Awardee ~

“Politically and socially, it is beautiful. Everybody was part of the play, engrossed…Gorgeous! It’s a story that needs to be told at different places amongst different people…”
~ T M Krishna, Musician, Author, Ramon Magsasay & Sangita Kalanidhi Awardee ~

“It was a very intimate experience. I thought the story was being told to me and to me alone! And the story is so lightheartedly told, even though it’s such a deep philosophy”                                       
~ Ranjana Pandey, Puppeteer, Trustee, UNIMA India Puppeteers Trust ~

“An amazing theatre experience! …Moving and engaging… minimalist and layered… A MUST WATCH! …”
~ M.K.Raina, Theatre Director, Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee ~

“It is a very, very magical performance…It’s playful, it’s poignant, it’s very, very moving…. Everybody should see it.”
~ Sunil Shanbag, Theatre Director, Sangeet Natak Akademi Awardee ~

“Maati Katha is as delicate a story as the clay used in the play… entrenched in the fragrance of the soil of Sunderbans. It is after a long time that I have watched a performance that talks about jal (water), jungle (forest), zameen (land) in such a poetic and resilient way.”                                                                                     
~ Komita Dhanda, Theatre Activist ~

“Sometimes theatre people are magicians. Maati Katha is a sensitive perspective on indigenous stories… is unbelievable… walks us through storms and pathos, spunk and love…”       
~ Saumya Baijal, Journalist & Dancer~

SYNOPSIS

In the dangerous and magical land of Sunderbans – the vast forested delta area in West Bengal (eastern India) and Bangladesh where great rivers combine and split before merging into the Bay of Bengal, a region of extreme ecological and environmental vulnerability – living is about a fragile balance between land and water, forest and field, domestic and wild, human and human, human and non-human, calm and storm. As each stakes claim, as each encroaches upon the other’s space, how does life manage?

Stories and beliefs form essential anchors for the people of the Sunderban, with the ‘Bonbibi’ legend looming large in the popular imagination. Bonbibi is said to have come to the ‘Land of the 18 Tides’ to help the people, the tigers, the deer, the crabs, the trees…  all beings that cohabit the land. But, only if we agree to her terms. And when she looks away, devastation follows! Episodes from this legend as well as everyday aspects of Sunderban life are depicted by the traditional and contemporary doll-makers of Sunderban. Maati Katha (Earth Stories) brings these dolls – originally used for worship, child’s play and display – into the theatre for the first time, combining these art and craft traditions with contemporary object and material theatre practices. The play brings alive the Sunderbans through these clay dolls and the shape-shifting ‘maati’ (clay, mud, soil, earth, land) that not only forms the dolls, but also defines the land and grounds the philosophy of the region. In doing so, Maati Katha invites us to celebrate human resilience in the midst of fragility – a resilience that enables diverse communities to hold together through repeated upheavals of natural calamity and human violence. Bonbibi’s philosophy reigns, ‘You are all connected: the crocodile, the tiger, water, forest, land, all human beings … All!’

www.tramarts.org   |    https://www.instagram.com/tramartstrust




Song translations
– Bangla to English (Total 6 songs)


SONG 1: INVOCATION (Bhatiyali traditional)

I floated this boat of a body, O Guru, in your name
Now if I were to drown and die,
Oh what a scandal that would be in your name!

~

SONG 2:  BOATMAN’S SONG (Bhatiyali traditional)
Row on, O oarsman…
Amidst this shoreless river, row my broken boat.
Row on, oarsman…

~

SONG 3:  DUKHEY JATRAPALA (Folk performance tradition)

Dhona: O ‘Bhabhiji’, mother of Dukhey, starvation faces you every day
Send me the boy, to sit with my crew, and I’ll make a man of him, I say!

.

Dukhey’s mother: Send you my boy? The jewel of my heart? Has he employment then found?
But I fear the jungle, and the sea – can you promise he’ll return safe and sound?

.

Dhona: Don’t worry, sister-in-law! I say, I saw his future in a dream
He will be rich and marry well. Towards that day, we go full steam!                                              

Dokkhin Rai: Listen to me Dhona, deliver me the boy                                 
Your team will find fish, honey, and crabs, oh joy!
I will harm no one but that little boy lonely
So board your boats and go! Leaving him behind only!

~

SONG 4: BONBIBI’S SONG

Remember that we live on land, on land we make our lives
On land we make our memories, our heritage survives
The tiger, snake, crocodile, the monitor and the forest
The fisherfolk, honey gatherers, the traders and the rest
Share the land and waters, help each other in your need
The way to survive is together, there is no space for greed
Remember Bonbibi in every dire strait
My blessings will protect you and forever change your fate.             

~

SONG 5: EI JOL JONGOL MAATI (Inspired from Baul)

This house made of clay, water and forest, O generous one
Which tide have you floated it on?
Were the bird of my soul to leave the soil and flutter away
Its dream would remain hidden within the clay
Tide in, tide out, we build and you break
Floating my boat-body on a single string
Will this forever be my fate!

~

SONG 6: SHUNDORI RE MAATI KADAY  (Inspired from Jhumur)

The Shundori tree thrives in the wet clay of this land
The Sundarbans have given me a vision, new and grand
With love in your heart, reach out and give care
For without it the world becomes terrifying, beware!
Our hearts at all times fear this terror and this rage
With togetherness comes comfort and something like courage
With blue and green, black and white we weave the warp and weft of life
You and I walk this land, how diverse is our stride?
Earth is life, life is earth – as the masters hail
Shundori says, this is the wave on which the boat of life must sail.