Shabari Rao’s latest performance installation offered an experience of stillness to the audience

"Is stillness a waste of time?” questions Shabari Rao in her latest offering called Still Standing, staged at Ranga Shankara. Eleven performers were placed at Ranga Shankara’s performance space as living installations. Her intentions were quite clear with this piece. “It is not a performance where people sit and watch, but has people walking through the performance space and in turn will also be a part of the performance.It is a pass-through-and-pause, rather than a sit-and-watch, kind of performance,” she says.
Speaking about the concept, Shabari says, “We have been thinking a lot about stillness, particularly during the pandemic. But when it comes to actually practicing, it is not easy. And, the invitation here is to engage in it at an experiential level.” However, the purpose of the participatory performance installation is not just this, but the piece comes with a satire on life as well. “It is also a statement – a political comment – resistance towards this belief that time is money and stillness is a waste of time. But is it? Is stillness something that allows you to engage in our life in a deeper way. I see a deep sense of value in stillness.”
Interestingly, while 2020’s pandemic got everyone talking about slowness and the art of stillness, Shabari was already exploring this subject in 2018 with her first performance. Part of a series of work that she has been creating since 2018 started with a stage performance consisting of 37 students, then an experiential film which transitioned into this contemplative installation piece. But with the pandemic hitting in 2020, did the entire concept of stillness become all the more relevant? “It certainly has. It also became an opportunity for me to practice what I had put into a performance,” she smiles.