First showing in Belgium
Arjun Raina
Theatre-Dance / India

Arjun Raina, an Indian artist, is a man of many talents, of multiple languages and cultures. He studied Shakespeare in London and did the Kathakali apprenticeship in India. In the two shows rich in colour that we will present in the same evening, he offers a feeling of contemporary India and its hundred-year-old inheritance. The Magic Hour mixes Shakespearian characters with the Khatali, theatrical dance from Kerela, the Indian tradition with the humour and tragic tension of Elizabethan theatre. The combination of these two roots of inspiration suggest at the same time pre-colonial India the British colonisation and Indian independence. A Terrible Beauty Is Born shows the consequences of a global economy through the well-known phenomena of delocalised “call-centres”. In this play, a mother from the New-York area who is without news from her daughter since the devastating 9/11 meets through the telephone an Indian employee of a credit card call centre that she thinks is near to her home in America, but who in reality is in India. A telephone affair is born between them, a story falsified by fake identities. Accompanied by the dancer Monica Singh Varma for The Magic Hour, Arjun Raina plays all the rules in these two shows, from the most Shakespearian to the most contemporary.

THE MAGIC HOUR
Conception: Arjun Raina- with: Arjun Raina, Monica Singh- Kathakali songs by Sadanam Radhakrishnan- Photographer: Ashim Ghosh - Duration: 1h10

A TERRIBLE BEAUTY IS BORN
Conception, play and performance: Arjun Raina- Photographer Mr Ashwini - duration: 50 min

The shows are in English with French subtitles