Saturday 6 April 2019

Churning Waters: Women, Water, Myths & More

I attended the performance Churning Waters at DakshinaChitra on February 3, 2019. As I mention in my Twitter thread, this performance which was part of Australia Fest was an enlightening experience. It was art for a cause at its finest, for many key social justice, environmental justice and gender justice issues were highlighted.  Indian & Aboriginal women performance artists and dancers and storyteller collaborated to highlight issues such as pollution, inequitable growth, the legacies of colonization, loss of identity and loss language [mother tongue], corporate greed, fracking, plastic pollution, climate change, and water woes

 


The performances linked many stories from the Das Avatar (10 Incarnations of the Divine Protector Lord Vishnu) to environmental issues. The Bharatnatyam performance by Priyadarshini Govind held within the Chettinad House linked Krishna dancing on the head of the serpent Kalia which was polluting the River Yamuna to the Sterlite protests. This was in response to the one of the Aboriginal performers sharing the story of how indigenous resources and sacred spaces were being exploited and the water polluted by mining and other industries.

I particularly liked the concept of the story tree, where narrations by the performers of the synopsis of their performances were recorded like powerful podcasts.  As someone who loves Orcas - the largest of dolphins the so-called Killer Whale, I loved the linking of the Matsya (Fish) avatar of Lord Vishnu to the Dreamtime legend of the Orcas and aboriginal tribes of New South Wales the Uru and the Yuni who could speak to the Orcas and the Orcas and the Aboriginals would come together to hunt Sperm Whales the very epitome of sustainable fishing: 

The 'Law of the Tongue' was that once the whales were harpooned and killed the whalers would leave them overnight for the Orcas to eat the tongues.
The Orcas would leave the rest of the carcass for the whalers.
 
More such social justice, environmental justice and gender justice storytelling is needed  and has to be showcased to wider audiences. As the title suggests Churning Waters was linked the Hindu myth of Samudra Manthan (the reason for the Kurma [Turtle] avatar of Lord Vishnu] - or as this installation at the Suvarnabhoomi Airport in Bangkok puts it - the churning of the milk ocean:
 



The finale was particularly poignant, for it relates ocean clean up to Samudra Manthan – the Hindu mythic churning of sacred milk ocean that yielded great poison before yielding the ocean's treasures and its bounty. The Gods and demons came together to churn the sacred ocean, face down the great poison and benefit from its bounty including the nectar of immortality. Marine plastic pollution was depicted as 21st Century’s great poison. While clean drinking water is already at a premium we continue to pollute water bodies with plastics and all sorts of pollutants. Over-fishing and the exponentially increasing plastic pollution of the seas is drastically reducing marine biodiversity and reducing fishing yields. We are the guardians of natural resources and to ensure our survival and that of other living beings that share our home planet we need to work to protect water bodies, forests and the environment. The rights, stories and leadership of women and indigenous people in guiding mankind towards true sustainable development was beautifully conveyed by this performance.