Tonight (18 April) Abu Dhabi sees the world premiere of PETTEE: storybox, a groundbreaking performance that blurs the lines between stage and audience, dance and theatre.
Written and directed by Deepak Unnikrishnan and Karthika Naïr, the piece was commissioned by The Arts Center at NYU Abu Dhabi with the support of Dance Reflections by Van Cleef & Arpels. In languages that are home to hundreds of millions of people (Malayalam, Tamil, Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi) ‘pettee’ is a word with meanings such as casket, crate, and suitcase. But the meaning that almost everyone recognises instantly is ‘container’ – containers we carry, containers that contain us. It is a word with weight for the rootless or the displaced, for those dreaming of possibilities.
The writers invited a number of artists from various horizons in their attempt to give those dreams shape and song – composer Sarathy Korwar with his musicians, choreographers/performers Wanjuro Kamuyu, Saju Hari and Ali Ben Lotfi Thabet, set and lighting designer Willy Cessa, illustrator Appupen (George Mathen), and rigger-prop maker Simon Nyiringabo. The result is an immersive world of movement and music and flight, where bodies unbend, lunge and soar, to unseal and unpack years of youth, where multiple futures, each magical, seemed possible.
“We were really inspired when Deepak Unnikrishnan approached us with the idea of creating his first dance piece” says The Arts Center’s Executive Artistic Director Bill Bragin. “He’s one of the UAE’s leading literary figures, as well as NYU Abu Dhabi faculty, looking at issues of Gulf migration with a sharp eye and a mischievous and fantastical sensibility. His collaborator Karthika Nair recently taught at NYUAD and worked as a dramaturg on Mehek by Aakash Odedra & Aditi Mangaldas, which we presented in February. Together they have assembled an all-star transnational team of interdisciplinary collaborators that we are excited to see perform.
“Commissioning new work is always an adventure, and turning over The Red Theater for a month so they could develop the new work is a noticeable investment by NYU Abu Dhabi in creative development.”
Deepak Unnikrishnan – who is Associate Arts Professor at NYUAD – says that text has dominated stories about people like me in the Gulf. “I wanted to look elsewhere. Intentionally, turned to a discipline that viewed the literal body as a punctuation mark, a sentence, a thought. But I needed help.
“The choreographers of PETTEE – Saju Hair, Wanjiru Kamuyu and Ali Thabet – come from movement disciplines as varied as the circus arts, martial arts and Broadway. Their knowledge has given the project a different set of vocabularies and registers to think about experiences not only relevant to the Gulf, but also elsewhere. I know what to do with the page. I am working with dancers and musicians who are helping me learn what to do with the stage.”
Karthika Nair, French-Indian poet, playwright, fabulist, and dance scenarist, had already read Unnikrishnan’s 2016 novel Temporary People, winner of The Restless Books Prize for New Immigrant Writing. “Within a few chapters — perhaps even pages — I knew. Here was writing that danced off the page, writing that sang in multiple tongues, that detonated the frontiers of literary convention. Writing that felt like home.
“My world revolves around dance. And while I never expected Deepak to pick a performative piece as our intended collaboration, it feels somehow right – and inevitable. As right, and inevitable, as the process of making PETTEE with this particular team. Willy Cessa, Simon Nyiringabo, Sarathy Korwar, Appupen, the three choreographers — whose work I have been watching, entranced, for years … PETTEE is the experience it is, on and off stage, thanks to their exceptional talent, but also their giant hearts.” Audiences can expect an immersive journey into a world of movement, music, and flight, where bodies unbend, lunge, and soar to unseal and unpack years of youth. PETTEE: storybox promises to transport visitors into a realm where multiple futures, each magical, seem possible.
PETTEE: storybox runs for just two performances – on 18 and 19 April, at 7.15pm on both days. Tickets are AED 105; buy them here.
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