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interviews Ajay Chhabra, Artistic Director - the London Mela | Ajay Chhabra, Artistic Director - the London Mela |
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What is the London Mela?
A free outdoor multi arts festival with stages, tents, workshops and installations combined with satellite events prior to, during and post the event – inspired by the culture and creativity of South Asia, the London Mela re-invents traditional village festivals and fairs – combining artistic interpretation from across the Diaspora, from the offspring off Bhojpuri indentured laborers to the Sikh farmers of California, from spoilt rich kids of the Delhi suburbs to the Indian factory workers of 1960’s London – the London Mela embraces all these influences and reinvents Mela with its heart and sole in passionate performance which arouses interests and creates a collective debate………. The London Mela is on a journey – and that journey could take us anywhere – it works because we collaborate, partner up and work closely with people we like and that have a collective vision. On the one hand it’s a playground where former accountancy, medicine, or management students suddenly chuck all that behind them and become actors, DJ’s and dancers….. Its amazing how many people who work or perform in the Mela follow their intuition…and on the other hand it’s a non elitist, independent, free-gathering of tens of thousands of people, re-acquainting themselves, meeting new friends and just all celebrating collectively on mass…it’s the Kumbh Mela without the Sadhus, its Glastonbury without the drugs and it’s the Burning Man Festival without the heat…hahahhahahhahhah!!!!!!
Tell me a bit about your background in theatre...
When I was 19 I got my equity card (which means that I became a professional actor, you cant work without one in the UK and it used to be a catch 22 situation – if you didn’t have one, you couldn’t work and if you didn’t have any work, you didn’t have a card.. a good way of keeping people out) I performed in a play, at the Riverside Studios for Tamasha Theatre Co. their first play and mine! On the London stage by night and by day I trained to be an International Hotel Manager!!!! Sounds glamorous, but it wasn’t, it was hard work and long days….finally completing my studies in Austria – the Hotel Managers Shangri La…. This continued for another 4 years, combining working on television and radio with education…until I finally severed my relationship with wanting to be a suave Hotelier…. I now find myself directing shows and running the Mela as a manager of a five star hotel would..It can get embarrassing!!!!
You've said before that the London Mela is like "If you put all of the arts centers, clubs and theatres of London together for one day." A complex drama indeed - how has your experience as a professional actor and theatrical director influenced the form and evolution of the London Mela?
One of the annually recurring facets of the London Mela is to commission new artistic works from emerging artists and companies. Tell me about this year's commissions and how they came together.
New work and supporting new initiatives is at the heart of the Mela. When I first started creating the content and concept for Mela’s and other festivals, it was clear that the pool of artists was very shallow, we were all booking the same performers, and each year the same old faces re-invent themselves with a new album, or costume, or instrument..it was crazy. So we decided we didn’t want to subscribe to that, so we began to create new work, which we fundraise for and support, before, during and after the Mela, enabling the work to tour and become self managing…. Its just as much process led as product and we have successfully created four new pieces of work, in circus, classical music, street theatre and installation…the work has toured and has been seen by audiences in the region of 100, 000. One of the many opportunities the London Mela offers me is the opportunity to present my work to a mass audience….when I was directing work in theatre it would often be on for a couple of weeks or a month at the most, a convention of touring, regional theatre..And at most 3/4000 people would see it, at the very most if it were packed every night… a more likely figure was 1500 people would see it in its entire run…well, I can achieve that number in just one performance at the Mela and that has been really compelling….the fact that you can make work and many people can be part of that experience in one hit..Its another way of getting your work out…something’s work in intimate spaces…and other things outdoors in an expanse of space….!!!!!!!!
How does this Mela reflect the significance of cultural diversity in London?
I could be really sticking my neck out and say that cultural diversity is dead! But the reality is it exists….the Mela was their before the term CD existed and by virtue of the nature of the event it is a CD event…but before all of this it is a quality multi art form event… and then everything else…. South Asians gathering and celebrating on mass in public grew as a phenomena in the late 1980’s in the UK…more recently it has inspired other minority communities across the European Union…Mela was able to learn lessons from the Caribbean communities collective passion in developing Carnival in the UK and the upheavals and pitfalls it had to go through…when Mela first appeared two important moments had passed – the riots of the early 1980’s – which impacted directly on Asian areas particularly in London and Birmingham – up to this point the streets where unsafe, their was always an element of fear in certain areas – but the swell of collective Asian youth standing for what they believed in and created a confidence un-know up to that point shaped and changed views the media and the country had held of Asian youth…and the other moment of transition…was the creation of the VCR…..Asians became the largest consumers of VCR recorders in 1979/80..and literally over night the weekly Sunday gathering of watching Bollywood films with friends and family – at the local cinema died………..a period of 5/6 years passed and along came the Mela….people were fed up of sitting at home, watching a three hour movie, with no interaction……staring at a box in the corner of a room. The Mela does what it does..and doesn’t allow itself to be lead by anyone or the politic of the day…independence is our strength and I see independence being lost all around us as in the case of musicians and DJ’s becoming part of a corporate culture .. I think its different for actors – in some way we are harder to package…but I’m sure someone’s working on it…..!!!!
Given that so many performers are involved in the London Mela, and that your audience is in the 10s of 1000s, I'm sure the London Mela impacts modern South Asian culture in the city - any thoughts on that?
The London Mela is a London event and as we re-invent Mela here it’ll have a ripple effect across North America, Australia and other corners of the world where south Asians have set up home….. Britain is a nation of shopkeepers and London is a collective of villages…..and people from all those villages take time out and perform, come along and engage in the event. And the London Mela definitely impacts on the city at large, both politically and culturally, its says public space is free and belongs to all of us and we can all occupy it for a temporary period and then move on….… ultimately hard to quantify but when institutions like the British Museum and the ICA come knocking on our doors, we must be doing something right - and even if they need to tick a box…we quickly make friends and spread the magic dust of the wonderful world of Mela all over them!!!!
As usual, it seems that tons of amazing things are happening this year, what are the performances you'll be sure not to miss?
For Music its gotta be Indo Electronica (and DJ Abdul Smooth!!) This is a Mela first……….this type of work gets hidden behind the doors of institutions and clubs..and presented to the invited few. At the Mela….pre-partition grannies will rub shoulders with cutting edge DJ’s, now that’s taking it somewhere else! For breathtaking performance its gotta be Bollywood Steps our finale performance..
More info:
Beatbox Unorthodox
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I played the undertaker in Charles Dickens “A Christmas Carol” when I was 9 years old, I also played a Canadian mountie when I was 6, for some unknown reason…and then I did a short acting course when I was 18. The 9 years in between I was a shy geek with glasses, I stuttered, wore free specs issued by the government and I was unable to utter a word in public, but I loved to play, mess about, create mischief – secretly I knew I was an actor………..very weird. I grew up in the 1970’s in London, in awe of my uncles and cousins in film in Mumbai and BBC journalist cousin – whilst following their careers I was only really thinking about being a train guard on a British Rail train. I had a box of toys, which included an action man, Tonto (Lone Ranger’s native American friend) and a Muhammad Ali boxing man….a few toy cars and an orange plastic speedboat they would all sit in…that was my treasure…..back in 1974…Rumble in the Jumble time!!!! I would create stories and adventures and play myself and breathe life and voices alongside these iconic heroes!!!!
Fast forward……
My frustration with conventional theatre in the UK has manifested itself in the Mela. British theatre is all about words…two people stand on stage and talk to each other and more often than not at each other…and in some cases for hours on end!!!….if only you look at directors like Robert Lepage or David Glass….these directors use everything available to them to tell a story, often starting with a single object and building a story around it…so I worked right across the board performing and directing in theatre where people just talked to each other, I never really got it but I thought that was because I never went to drama school and I was sort of blagging my way through…so I never questioned it……..I ended up winning two awards for my directing work……..both shows were based on true life experiences , one of gang murder and the other of old age…. …Despite this I would always felt intimidated by the business of acting and all the airs and graces that come with it….until I met some inspirational people…I had turned 30, was thinking about quitting as an actor and was on an Arts Council Directors Bursary with David Glass…he was an inspiration…really funny, he completely broke down the notion of performance being available only to the privileged few…and made me realize their where other people like me around.
The Mela works on so many different levels and there is something for everyone - on the one hand it’s a full on pop concert and on the other you could stumble across some experimental performance, which could embarrass your entire family, and generations who have lived before you!!!….I used my knowledge of the arts and contacts, in inviting companies and artists to make and present their work in an alternative setting – and this has proved to be successful. I knew many artists who were frustrated with the convention and I just said do you fancy doing something at the Mela, and they’ve gone yes!!…Occasionally I have come across artists and directors of companies who see the Mela as a working class activity…and not real art. This really makes me laugh – as one or two have come full circle……I often come across posh , south Asian snobs – who secretly have a desire to streak across the Mela!!!
I was also surrounded by my incredible family – my father was a member of the youth congress party in pre partition India – and appeared at rallies with Nehru and Gandhi –dedicating himself to the mass exodus in August 1947, co-coordinating and helping people to leave villages and towns which were soon to become Pakistan…and my mother was third generation Indian Fijian…..my maternal great grandfather was an indentured labourer………crossing……thousands of miles from a small village in central India to a tiny island in the pacific at the age of 14 in 1904……..and we have always being surrounded by stories of straight forward, honest , hard working people …… and with my parents their has never been an ounce of bitternes about what they have been through – loss, yes, but never bitterness….and I feel blessed to have parents who were never ever interested in the latest Mercedes or obsessed with buying another house …….
Anyway what also was getting my back up was, the Asian theatre scene in London… really pretencious, really boring and everyone was a minor celebrity for having a bit part on a telly soap....
So where does the Mela fit in….well it fills a void….it goes full circle…….Asian work and practictioners have been desperate to work with institutions like the National Theatre, RSC, the BBC etc etc etc and they are…its all good, programmes are being made, ideas are being produced……but at the expense of creative independence.
Deep down we all have a sense of fun and joy and play..and theatres and institutions only suppress our idea of fun….we go in pay lots of money for the privilege, sit in compartments and then clap with even more suppression. But its knowing exactly what I didn’t want to be part of, that I found what I did want to be part of…….
But the Mela would never have happened with out a friend and colleague – Julian Rudd the Mela Producer – he helps me produce my vision…and our relationship is based on trust, experience and intuition and he helps me do my job. And we are surrounded by talented and clever people, who are really un-assuming – and nearly everyone works at Glastonbury, Womad and all the other big British festivals – and its this collective experience which makes the London Mela happen.
Yes, it allows freedom of expression in public….its live and it’s free..the performers do not have the luxury of doing it again as in a tv or recording studio, they only have one chance….and you soon realize who the blaggers are…the pr machinery that surround some brothers and sisters in the industry is crazy….and everyone feels they have a god given right to perform on the main stage at peak time.. But it’s the combination of humour, ego and the unknown that keeps me compelled with this crazy event. We never book anyone we haven’t seen live before (except the odd one, no names mentioned!!), so we maintain quality and an element of competition amongst the performers….they have to want to do the London Mela, its not just another gig……
The world has slowly woken up to the beast that is Bollywood…and despite the ugly underworld, ego ridden stars and general lies about “this filum is goona be different” yeah, yeah, yeah!!! The London Mela finale is always a huge event…much talked about and hugely anticipated…and this year we have gone for it..It isn’t a half-baked show, its how Bollywood should be, live, in your face and on mass …it includes….25 performers…. pyrotechnics, water fountains, and a specially built stage for it all to play on…….
And what I most look forward to is bumping into people I went to school with who say …”oi, blimey are you that geek with glasses!!!!”
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Hi All, Hope all is well with you.. My name is Beatbox Unorthodox, I am a professional beatboxer and have been beatboxing for over 3 years. I have appeared on national T.V aswell as radio and I am 18 years old. My myspace is www.myspace.com/beatboxunorthodox. I have tried again and again to contact a number of people involved in organizing this years mela regarding if it would be possible to perform however unofortunately I have recieved no reply from anyone. I was wondering if it would be possible to perform a few minutes set at this years London Mela? I have always wanted 2 perform on either the main stage or 1 of the main ones, please let me know if this is possible as i am a very keen artist and performer and I promise you I will leave the crowd speechless. I look forward to hearing from you, Thank you for your time Regards, Ibrahim Ahmed |
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