The Presence Project

Vayu Naidu will conduct the third of our Presence workshop demonstrations on 22 March, 12.30-4.30 here at Exeter.

These images are from Vayu Naidu Company's inaugural production, SOUTH (2002)

In preparation for the workshop, Vayu writes:

The oral tradition of storytelling is alive and kicking. There is no point in arguing whether it is the oldest form of narrative, it is as it is contemporary; the challenge is to demystify its archaic stereotype while making its presence in performance. The workshop will focus on Storytelling specific to performance and the elements that make compelling listening within a story, as well as what constitutes a mesmerising Storyteller. The participatory lecture focuses on definitions of Storytelling that includes an exploration of its anatomy. Vayu Naidu has constructed through her AHRC Fellowship and her Theatre Company, work that engages with emotive intention-movement-word as a process of telling, derived from a South Asian traditions.

We will also look at the work of Vayu Naidu Company, an Independent Storytelling Touring Theatre that has used Storytelling as its axis in its myriad forms of work – conflict resolution; domestic violence; Tsunami victims; Refugees.

Further information on Vayu’s work and related reading is online at the Presence Project Collaboratory at http://presence.stanford.edu:3455/Collaboratory/501

To book a place on the workshop, please e-mail Linda Dowsett at l.m.dowsett@exeter.ac.uk.

Vayu is currently Lecturer in the Department of Drama , School of Drama, Film and Visual Arts at the University of Kent. She was appointed following a post doctoral Fellowship in Creative and Performing Arts by the Arts and Humanities and Research Board (AHRB 2001-2004, now AHR Council) and was hosted by the Drama Department at Canterbury, University of Kent. Her work was titled: The Presence of Absences: exploring technique and manifestation in the contemporary performance Storyteller.

Vayu Naidu Company Limited was founded on the basis of creating new frontiers for performance and engaging transcultural practice in an interdisciplinary way. This has been supported by Arts Council England and all the above institutions as well are gratefully acknowledged for their support, including Gulbenkian Theatre. Vayu Naidu Company Limited is now based as the Leathermarket, London.

As a performance Storyteller, she has created new work, but significantly established both for general audiences, and students of performance in Higher Education an interest and methodology in Storytelling and cultures of oral traditions. Her work ranges from being a soloist, working with Contemporary Music composers and musicians, Orchestras, and world musicians, as well as in theatre writing for the stage, radio, and as an actor in television and film.

Vayu most recent new work includes NOTHING BUT THE SALT that has been on a South Asian Theatre Consortium tour after premiering in the Canterbury Festival at Gulbenkian Theatre. Her adaptation of MANNIMEKALAI and PSYCHE for composer Judith Weir was featured in Channel 4’s documentary on ARMIDA AND OTHER STORIES (Dec 2005 and February 2006).

Her work will be featured in Palgrave’s WOMEN AND NARRATIVE edited by Gerry Harris and Elaine Aston 2007, and has featured in Michael Wilsons STORYETLLING AND THEATRE (Palgrave, 2005).

The forthcoming production of Vayu Naidu Company is about Annie Besant’s Indian Home Rule.

Future workshops are:

Phillip Zarrilli and Kl;aus Seewald: 10 May
Fiona Templeton: 24 May
Bella Merlin: 21 June

Full details are at our Exeter Presence website at http://www.projects.ex.ac.uk/performing-presence/events.php

All images courtesy Vayu Naidu Company.

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Vayu Naidu will be offering one of our series of six Performing Presence workshops on 22 March.

Vayu is a performance storyteller ‘committed to the renaissance of storytelling as a performative art within contemporary culture’.

These images are from Vayu Naidu Company’s inaugural production South (2002), directed by Chris Banfield.

South is a visually stunning, cross-genre performance that brings together contemporary and South Indian (bharata natyam) dance performance.

Developed with jazz musician Orphy Robinson, South explores ‘the meaning of geographical direction,’ drawing on the experience of refugee communities in coastal locations in the South East of England, where Vayu is based, Cornwall, Chennai, South Africa, and Greece.

Richly cross-cultural and combining diverse contemporary and traditional practices, Vayu’s work explores and articulates the presence of the narrative storyteller, transposing RASA, ‘the essence of performance,’ toward the creation of performer presence.

In her workshop practice, Vayu works to focus RASA, taking ‘a journey through the nine principal human emotions that give an impulse to movement and then to story.’

Vayu’s research on performance storytelling was the basis of a prestigious Arts and Humanities Research Council Research Fellowship in the Creative Arts at the University of Kent, UK, from 2001-2004.

Vayu Naidu Company’s current performance is Nothing but the Salt, created by Vayu in collaboration with Judith Wier and directed by Chris Banfield.

The Company’s website is at http://www.vayunaiducompany.org.uk/

Images courtesy Vayu Naidu Company.

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