Different strokes to explore spirit of city

What do you expect when a theatre artist, cartoonist, graphic designer, installation artist, painter, dancer, textile designer, writer and film director join hands for art''s sake? Definitely, creativity of the highest form.
That is precisely what members of The Creative Arts ensemble are planning for theatre lovers of Kolkata. Exploring the varied art forms to give expression to a new genre is their latest production Is Job Charnock coming to dinner?, the first site specific performance on such a large scale in the city, claim members.
"It is not a performance on specific platform but a journey which discovers varied forms of expressions in response to the site and likewise takes the audience through a gamut of emotions," said theatre artist and founder director of The Creative Arts, Ramanjit Kaur.
She along with a team of creative artistes from different walks of life are discovering their own individual space through a 15-day workshop, to explore the range of emotions for their latest play Is Job Charnock coming to dinner?
To be performed on February 7 and 8 at Swabhumi, the play aims at exploring the spirit of Kolkata — its warmth, affection, intellectual talent et al, and bring forth its palpable vibrancy.
The city has a distinct charm of which it needs to view positively. It''s overriding passion — be it voicing their opinion through processions or easy way of life, can do wonders if one starts thinking about it positively, feels Kaur.
It was the general feeling among city folks to complain about the city for being far behind its counterparts like Mumbai and Delhi that prompted her to conceive the play.
"I worked on the idea for almost six months and decided to incorporate all art forms since I wanted to find how each of them express this feeling towards the city through their own art and how are they able to shed their well-defined space to experiment with a new form," she said.
Hence, with a cast comprising cartoonist Arthur Cardozo, playwright Sangeetha Bapuli, lecturer at RBU Chhatrapati Dutta, Odissi dancer Alokananda Roy, Manipuri dancer Suman Sarawgi, kathak dancer Aditi Bhattacharya, textile designer Sujata Sarawgi, installation artist Paula Sengupta, lecturer at SRFTI Santanu Bose, writer and mountaineer Rajesh Jadhav, under privileged children from Disha Foundation and several members of The Action Players, The Creative Arts is all set to create ripples.
Against the backdrop of the typical Bengali Mukhopadhyay household, the play will bring forth the spirit of Kolkata through an interplay of characters within the household.
"It will essentially be a montage of visuals which will create an impact on the audiences. The script will keep evolving during the workshop and imbibe the thoughts and expressions of each artiste," said Cardozo.
As kathak dancer Aditi Bhattacharya said after a day''s workshop, "I had to unlearn the body expressions of the dance and use its language to express a different form. We explored the character and not the art and shed predefined expressions to enjoy the impromptu emotions."
As they say, anything for art''s sake.