DARK&DELICIOUS

Background of this work: This performance was originated in 2019 at a performative installation at the Embassy of Switzerland in New Delhi where some plants which are of economic importance to humans were visualised as gender fluid.The queer performance ‘Dark&Delicious’ was then developed from this concept and presented on 27th Jan,2020 at The Eastwind Academy of Advanced Music and Performance art in Gurugram and went on to be performed at a Delhi University college festival and a basement theatre in New Delhi. This situational reality based fantastical performance was seen as a threat and we were asked not to perform it, or then to keep it as a secret performance.In 2023 the performance was presented under the patronage of Safemuse at the SafeHavens Conference in Athens. We are thrilled to now be presenting it at The Nordic Black Theatre in Oslo.

SYNOPSIS: A Queer Botanist and a Poet survive underground and re discover their lives with the plants and flavours of Ginger, Saffron and Chocolate. They find that their emotional states lead them to understand what these plants are telling them. Could they be dreaming? Or is it real? Whatever the situation – The plants present their botanical details; history and role in relation to the human world. In doing so they enable both characters revisit difficult moments in their own lives to gain a fresh perspective.

Details We look at the overlapping spaces of Plant and Human survival and articulate our stories inspired by the work of scientists from J.C.Bose (Plant response as a means of physiological investigation 1906) to Monica Gagliano (Thus Spoke the Plant: A Remarkable Journey of Groundbreaking Scientific Discoveries and Personal Encounters with Plants 2019) Although considered “insentient” by the human world- there is scientific proof that Plants have a very elaborate and intelligent communication system which scientists today refer to as the ‘wood wide web’. As Queer artists this world resonates with our own - underground, rich, diverse, fluid and intense. When one is open to perceiving beyond binaries and without judging, one can hear the naturally queer stories that plants tell and understand the world of poetry as flavour and flavour as poetry. The plants that have been visualized are: Zingiber officinale - the plant that gives us Ginger; Theobroma cacao - the plant that bears the cocoa bean from which cocoa and chocolate is derived and Crocus sativus - the plant that yields Saffron spice from the female parts of the flower. Although the puppets are fantastical creations that move and talk- their structures and details are inspired to be botanically accurate to the actual plant.

Varun Narain is a puppeteer who believes in blurring boundaries. He has been both alumnus and visiting faculty at the Mass Communication Research Centre, Jamia Millia Islamia / Jamia University and Guru Gobind Indraprastha University - both in New Delhi India. He has worked with puppetry and development communication in the area of gender and sexuality with a number of NGOs such as Sakshi, IFSHA, UNIFEM and UNESCO. He was the first artist-in-residence to be facilitated by Pro Helvetia, the Swiss Arts Council, New Delhi in 2007 at the Schlachthaus Theater, Bern, Switzerland. His puppetry and education interface has seen him conduct masterclasses at the Pearl Academy for Fashion Design and for UNIMA India (Union Internationale de la Marionette) and workshops using puppetry as a tool to raise issues about stereotypes and prejudice at the South Asia Youth Peace Conference. He received a New Performance grant from the India Foundation for the Arts, Bangalore, to develop a performance with dance and puppets for an Indian adaptation of the classical ballet ‘Giselle’. His performative installation on global warming ‘Photosynthesis by Moonlight’ was performed at various schools and colleges in Delhi. He has worked on projects with Wizcraft at The Kingdom of Dreams, The Peninsula Studios and with the Indian fashion designers Tarun Tahiliani, Manish Arora and Gaurav Gupta. His production of ‘Ginger and Cacao’ premiered at the opening soiree for the India Art Fair 2019 'Fragile Kinships' at the Embassy of Switzerland, New Delhi. In 2020 he along with Actor-Poet Shaad Qureshi began to conceptualised, fabricated and perform ‘Dark and Delicious’, looking for ways to survive in a world torn apart by prejudice and violence.

Shaad Qureshiis an artist and a performer who likes to express himself in different artistic ways. He believes in equality and integrity for everyone. He explores life using still and video photography in urban and rural scenarios. He also writes poetry by processing situational reality and expressing it as couplets or verse in Hindi, Urdu and English. He is trained in acting techniques from ‘Barry John acting studio’. He assisted and documented ‘Fragile Kinships’ an Art Soiree at The Embassy of Switzerland, New Delhi, 2019. He has worked at the Kingdom of Dreams as an actor on stage in the Musical Extravaganza ‘Jhumroo’ based on the life and music of the Indian artist Kishore Kumar. During the covid pandemic along with puppeteer Varun Narain he acted in the online performance 'I am a Plant' for 'Same Boat Theatre Collective' as well as in the multidisciplinary collaboration 'Tales of Hans Christian Andersen'. He assisted Varun at 'Spielart Theater Festival 2021' in Munich, Germany and documented his performance 'The Spice Chronicles'. He and Varun have created and performed a show entitled 'Dark & Delicious' and are in the process of developing it further. The same show is now (2023-2024) supported by Safemuse, Norway. The show has also been performed in Athens for the SafeHavens conference 2023.

Requirements: 1): Floor Space: Approx 10 feet by 15 feet 2): Lights: A dark stage with three pools of light. 3): Two armless chairs 4): A table (about four feet high, covered with a black cloth.) 5): If the audience numbers are above 50 people, we will need audio microphones (wireless head sets) or suspended microphones to amplify our voices. 6): Audio playback: an iPod compatible speaker on which an underlay would play at a controlled volume at certain parts of the performance. 7):A projector and an operator to project required images at a point in the performance

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