Lindgren said she feels honoured that she was provided this opportunity to work in collaboration with Thespianz Theatre. — File photo

When asked to speak to Kanta Kochhar Lindgren for Images on Sunday, I was a bit nonplussed. I had no idea about her background in theatre apart from the fact that she was here as an American cultural envoy, and had been invited by a local theatre group to do some collaborative work.

My search on Google left me no less at sea, for there were just bits of information related to the vast body of work she has done. So, armed with little more than the knowledge that I was going to interview a professor of Performance Studies who has also written books, done choreography and directed plays — quite a few of which could be regarded as non-mainstream — I arrived at the earnest request for punctuality by Faisal Malik, the artistic director of Thespianz Theatre, 10 minutes earlier for the interview. After almost an hour, the unruffled Professor Lindgren accompanied by a profusely apologetic Malik made an appearance.

Lindgren told me that she uses a hearing aid before I began the interview. That immediately brought to my mind a curious piece of information I had read about the theatre director — that she had worked with deaf artistes. Wondering if that was the reason for her interest in this area, I found that it did have bearing on it. Not only has she worked with deaf actors — which she did not find difficult at all because her performances are mostly movement-based, and she 'relies on a sense of sight and aesthetics' more than anything else — she has also done extensive research on it.

'I've also written a book on performance and deafness, because I discovered that the National Theatre of the Deaf in the US, which had for many, many years performed in every continent and had a stunning production history, was not mentioned in any theatre history book. Also, I wanted to explore different ways for us to think about hearing and listening,' she said.

A PhD from New York University, Lindgren explained that Performance Studies is basically an interdisciplinary field that looks at theatre and anthropology — so it allows her 'to look at performances on-stage and their cultural background, as well as street performances and the way people make culture in their daily lives.' Hence, in that capacity, she teaches a number of varied and interesting courses at the University of Washington, not the least of which is one titled Performance and Healing.

'There are a variety of ways in which different communities engage in healing. Aside from the well-known western models, there are so many other systems, such as Shamanism, based on healing through communication with the spirit world. I concentrate on what different artistes have to say about healing. A wonderful example is Anna Halprin, a modern dance pioneer who wanted to explore other ways to engage the expressive body. She discovered early in her career that she had cancer, and her radical approach to dance by involving herself in a simple process of making images, resulted in a non-recurrence of her disease these last 40 years,' Lindgren elaborated.

Another example that Lindgren cites of healing through performance is of a project called Swamp Gravy. 'In that particular instance, there was a small southern town in the US which was dying, and one woman became very concerned about its survival. Eventually, she met Richard Grere (no connection with the Hollywood heartthrob) and he helped develop a community-based project by working on the stories of the community, transcribing them and turning them into scripts, and having the townspeople act out their stories. Over a period of time, their lives changed as they saw their stories enacted on stage, for healing takes place when you bring your stories out in the open, talk about them and see them projected in a new way. Such is the power of empathy and imagination that in time, the stories changed and the town prospered.'

Throwing light on the Hundred Hands Project (HHP) that she is also working on, she explained, 'I'm interested in what different communities have to say about the stories of their lands as I find some stories are repeatedly told, while others are not so easy to find out about. Migrations are constantly taking place in cities around the world, so through HHP I wanted to figure out a way to create a theatrical structure that would allow and invite different groups to share their stories. I will be collaborating with a Vietnamese drummer for the purpose, and have already embarked on a small version of the project.'

While most of the theatre that Lindgren does revolves around folklore, as she is interested in 'bringing it into public space', she is also involved in recovering memorial history; choreography of modern dance and directing regular plays. Among her long list of accomplishments are also community-based performance projects on health and diversity. 'I've always been interested in the history of medicine. The western version of medicine makes us think of the body as 'normal' or 'not normal' in a particular way, and I am trying to find different ways to use theatre so people can think about their conditions in new ways.'

As if this was not enough, Lindgren has also developed a solo piece that is autobiographical about growing up during the Civil Rights Movement; another that draws on classical Greek theatre, and is developing one on digital art and dance, which deals 'with memory and perception'. She has also taught a course in summer on garbage, which looked at the history, anthropology and the economics of garbage, as well as art made from it.

Here as an American cultural envoy as part of the state department's programme, Lindgren said she feels honoured that she was provided this opportunity to work in collaboration with Thespianz Theatre. They are working together on a production, Water Calligraphy, with local actors of the theatre group, dancers and musicians. The professor will also be doing a series of workshops for various institutions.