In January 2013 CONFINED was invited to be part of the largest theatre festival in Asia, The Bharat Rang Mahotsav International Theatre Festival, New Delhi, India. The New Dehli performance of CONFINED was presented as a music theatre installation in the songcycle genre. This structure allowed the narrative to expose a collage and moment rather than a linear retelling.

 

Wordless resonances and eloquent gaps presented leaps that mined the power of the voice and music exposing the human core in the nature of suicide and sexual trauma. The unity of this presentation of the libretto being further underlined by common themes and an examination of cross cultural perceptions of incarceration and psychosis, through extended research undertaken in India.

 

As aspects of CONFINED are concerned with the architecture of incarceration, Tammy Brennan wanted to give a contextual presentation of CONFINED for the Festival. Tammy traveled to the Andaman and Nicobar Islands, in the Bay of Bengal where she spent two weeks in Port Blair at the Old Cellular Gaol, a colonial prison also known as Kālā Pāani (Black Water).

 

Tammy made multiple visits to the gaol at different times of the day, to experience the stone features, the cells, long hallways and interplay of light with the wide spatial and temporal spread of the incarceration wings. During this time she created new field recordings and video work to incorporate into the Delhi performance.

 

Following this research Tammy was joined by Director Younes Bachir in New Delhi where they collaborated with Indian theatre artist Abheesh Sashidharan and the National School of Drama post-production team, to edit the media for presentation in the performance.

 

The production worked closely with Souti Chakraborty, Head of the National School of Drama Technical Team, to design and build the set for the performance; a series of boxes that replicated the cells of a gaol. Five local actors from the National School of Drama, Delhi were engaged for non-speaking movement based roles in the installation.

 

The box installation presentation of CONFINED is available for national and international touring.