About Beyond Bollywood
An artistic collaboration between The SAPAN Institute and The Smithsonian Beyond Bollywood Exhibit -
Living Beyond Bollywood is a 30 minute collection of six short theatrical scenes, created by SAPAN resident actors and Ali Milner, a professional theatre director and playwright.
Each scene is set in its own site-specific, content-appropriate location within the exhibit. A sari is present and featured in each of the scenes to make it easy for the audience to follow the story to the next performance location.
How did Beyond Bollywood come to be?
SAPAN was asked by the curator of the Beyond Bollywood exhibit, Dr. Masum Momaya, to create an in-exhibit performance piece based on source material from the exhibit itself, located in The Smithsonian’s National Museum of Natural History.
Originally performed within the exhibit’s Smithsonian location, Living Beyond Bollywood was well received with over 1,000 audience attendees over a series of performances in May 2014.
Scenes
Jumping Ship
British steamer approaching the coast of Manhattan - 1906
A seaman working in the engine room sneaks to the deck during dinner service for some fresh air. He happens upon his friend from the saloon crew, who appears to be selling saris to imaginary customers. The “salesman” divulges his plan to jump ship and swim to American shores. He wants to make a living selling saris in America, imagining an America in which saris are passed through generations, as they are in India. He imagines that someday saris will be worn by the most powerful women in America. He convinces his friend to join him and the scene ends mid-jump.
Love Letters
California & Punjab - 1917
In this scene, the sari is a physical link between a young betrothed couple exchanging letters between California and Punjab. The audience hears each character read aloud as he or she composes a letter to the other. The woman can’t wait to join her fiancé in California after their wedding, but her visa application is rejected after the Asiatic Barred Zone Act (also known as the Immigration Act of 1917) passes. The man, working on an orchard in California, knows he cannot leave his job in America to return to Punjab, or his family will lose his income and their farm due to increased British taxes. The woman pleads for her groom to come back. He sends a final letter in return, asking her forgiveness and breaking the engagement. He has made plans to begin a new courtship with the daughter of a Mexican family who has been kind to him. At the end of the scene, the man releases the sari and exits the scene, leaving the woman holding the sari alone.
The Campaign
Dalip Singh Saund Campaign Headquarters - 1957
A manager for the Saund congressional campaign conducts a training session for campaign volunteers. This scene is interactive and engages audience members in a question and answer session about Dalip Singh Saund’s life and campaign challenges leading to his eventual election to the U.S. House of Representatives.
Dotbusters
Family-run Motel in Jersey City Heights - 1987
A high school girl cagily tries to convince her mother to wear “Western” clothes to the back-to-school parent teacher conference. Proud of her heritage and tradition, her mother plans to wear a red sari instead. Initially, the scene may appear to depict a tension between Western and Eastern ideals of beauty, and a young high school girls’ embarrassment with her culture, but it takes a turn. Eventually, the mother asks if her daughter’s worry has anything to do with a letter recently published in their local paper from a self-professed “Dotbuster,” which promised violence towards Hindus. She reassures her daughter that this person represents a very small number of people and that their family will be safe. Her daughter finally reveals that her friend’s mother was attacked that afternoon. She tells her mother to wear Western clothes to the meeting or not to go at all. The mother is left shaken and contemplating the Western dress.
Enlistment
Indian-American rural household - 2002
A brother and sister prepare a surprise dinner party for their mother’s birthday. The sister has disguised her visit home as a break to study for the MCAT exam (she will one day take over her father’s medical practice). As they set the table, the daughter lays out her mother’s favorite sari to change into when she arrives home from her yoga lesson. As she and her brother rehearse the toast, the brother divulges that he has enlisted in the military and would like to announce it during the party. This news shocks the sister. Their family is Sikh; her brother will have to remove his turban and shave, a sacrilege in their religion. The dialogue reveals their great grandfather immigrated from India and served in World War I, but was denied citizenship for nearly 20 years, a wound their family carries. The brother, who has faced harassment and discrimination since 9/11, wants to honor his family’s tradition of service and prove that he, too, is a patriot. He pleads for his sister’s help in telling their parents and she finally agrees.
Progress
Present Day
A powerful monologue delivered by a female figure that ties together the previous 5 scenes and formally closes the performance. Dressed in a vibrant red sari, the character appears to be running for office and shares with the audience her dilemma in choosing to wear a sari for her speech that day. After exploring the origins of the sari through generations of Indian Americans, the character expresses her cultural pride and comes to the conclusion that the sari (a representation of the Indian American identity) is now part of the American fabric too.