Studio 180 Blog

Today marks the deadline for Theatre Creators’ Reserve submissions to Studio 180 so it seems an apt opportunity to reflect on our past involvement with the program and to pass along an update from a previously recommended project, much like we did with The Normal Heart‘s Jonathan Seinen in this earlier blog.

Ravi Jain

In 2009, Studio 180 was chosen to be a third party recommender for the Ontario Arts Council’s Theatre Creators’ Reserve program and Ravi Jain of Why Not Theatre was one of the very first recipients of a recommendation from our Core Artistic Team. Ravi took time out to chat with us from London, England on the third day of a development workshop for Komagata Maru (the project that received our recommendation in early 2010) to chat about the work’s progress and what the support of the Theatre Creators’ Reserve program has meant to the process.

RAVI JAIN: The initial support from the Theatre Creators’ Reserve allowed me to start a long term project which I have been working on since January 2010 and am aiming to finish for 2014 . . . I am now in the middle and here is what I’ve been up to.

The project is inspired by an event in Canadian history often referred to as “The Komagata Maru Incident”. The Komagata Maru was a ship that came over to Canada from India in 1914, carrying 376 Indians looking to immigrate to this country. The problem was that Canada’s immigration policy at the time was an all white immigration policy. In a very long, drawn out  and dramatic legal battle, the boat and its passengers were denied entry. This event exposed the inequities within the British Empire as well as Canada’s not so pleasant past.

“That Canada should desire to restrict immigration from the Orient is regarded as natural, that Canada should remain a white man’s country is believed to be not only desirable for economic and social reasons but highly necessary on political and national grounds.”- William Lyon Mackenzie King, 1908

I saw a documentary that told the story of the Komagata Maru called A Continuous Journey by Ali Kazimi and it had a huge impact on me. So, in 2010, with the help of the Theatre Creators’ Reserve and Studio 180, I brought over a director from the UK and worked with a number of actors in Toronto on a one week workshop.

A photo from No Entry, the Coronation Park podcast project

The project then sat for a while . . . then in August 2010, a boat of Tamils came to Canada and was denied entry in a way similar to Komagata Maru. Not the same, but it brought up similar questions as to who we let into the country and why. With the help of writer Sharada Eswar (thanks to the Ontario Arts Council and the Canada Council for the Arts) I went to Vancouver to interview passangers on that boat who were being detained. Aided by the local Tamil community and Tamil aritsts, I created a site specific podcast in Coronation Park entitled No Entry, which allowed these stories to be told in their own voices. The passengers spoke about why they came to Canada, the challenges they were facing and the need to seek shelter as they were fleeing persecution.

Now, December 2011, I am in London, England working with four Canadians, three Indians, five British South Asians and two others to deepen the research and work on this eventual play. It has been incredible to see the ways in which the South Asian Diaspora and others react to this story. With this phase of research we look to go beyond the political dimensions of the story which tend to dominate how we experience it, and look deeper into the human aspect of it.

The Theatre Creators’ Reserve was THE catalyst to make this project happen. Without it, I wouldn’t have had the freedom to just begin. It is that freedom with no expectations, that trust in the idea and support that is the best way to begin a project, and the thing that I want to forever hold on to as I continue on this journey.

Thanks so much Ravi, for keeping us up to date on the project and for the exciting and challenging work you continue to create.  Ravi will next be seen in Toronto at Tarragon theatre in, A Brimful of Asha.