ReMAP 96 Symposium: Copenhagen. 4-6 October 1996

by Jatinda Verma

"Artistic Concepts and Intercultural Approaches"

"Bless thee, Bottom, bless thee. Thou art translated", exclaims Snout on seeing Bottom with an ass's head in Shakespeare's Midsummer Night's Dream. As in so much of Shakespeare, you wonder what he means. Does he mean, 'Hell, man, you're changed - get the fuck outta here!' Or does he mean "Bless" in the sense of 'By God's grace you're changed, and it is a blessing'? I tend to favour the latter meaning - for obvious reasons - and will come back to it after thinking a little on food!

What are the artistic concepts for inter- or cross-cultural approaches? Salman Rushdie came up with a potent image in Midnight's Children: leaking. Stories, people, situations "leaking" into each other. Extending on from that, I think a useful concept for us is that of cooking.

Cooking, and its attendant, eating, is inherently a diverse activity. I know of people who have only onions, but even they have to have it in combination with garlic or cheese! But even if eating only raw onions, what makes an onion is a whole combination of diverse organic matter.! So, if you're into cooking and eating, you're into diversity whether you like it or not!

Cooking involves 4 stages:

• Assembly of materials
• Preparation
• Presentation/Serving
• Consumption

Like cooks, we in the theatre have first to assemble our materials: the text, the cast, the production team, the space. A diverse set of materials for the concoction of a single dish. The preparation - rehearsals - involves sifting the material to get the right blend, evoking the flavour we're after. Too much salt is dangerous, as is over-heating of the melange of ingredients. And then, of course, comes presentation and the serving up of our dish: the performance. The necessary ritual preceding consumption. Where appetites are whetted, expectation aroused. The lights come down, the stage picture is revealed.

Consumption by the audience who are the recipients of our dish, is the final act: they'll either fall sick with our dish or - and this is always the hope - let out an enormous burp of satisfied delight!

Cooking, however, is not an un-problematic concept in relation to cultural diversity. One needs to have the willingness to seek out other ingredients to excite the palate. Having the willingness is not enough by itself: where does one go to get that taste of those ingredients? Knowledge, or knowing where to get the knowledge, is therefore also important.

The willingness to confront one's palate can suggest a streak of adventurous-ness, could be the result of an accident, or could be the result of obligation - like when you go for a meal for the first time to a friend's house and are invariably confronted by smells, tastes and textures that are subtly different to what you're used to.

Obligation, I think never works: you can never force someone to like a dish they find revolting. This suggests that if you're into broadening your palate, you must have a prior propensity to, a sensibility for, an attitude - of adventure; and therefore are willing - positively welcome - encountering different dishes, different tastes. A propensity, an attitude that I would regard as fundamentally Nomadic as opposed to Settler. The nomad welcomes, thrives on, a constant shift of location, of tastes, of smells, of colours, of textures. The Settler, conversely, finds comfort in fencing the world off from his home.

My concept of cooking can therefore be qualified as Nomadic Cooking. And Nomadic Cooking, at base, is an offering: no one is under any obligation to eat the food nor are we, on our part, forcing the food upon anyone. And it is this notion of an offering which I would relate to a spiritual, a humane sensibility: 'Bless thee, Bottom - By God's grace you're changed, and it is a blessing'! This reminds me of a story ascribed to the founder of Sikhism in India: Guru Nanak. Nanak, it is said, went to Mecca and lay down to rest after a long journey with his feet pointing in the direction of the Ka'aba - the sacred centre of Mecca. A disgruntled pilgrim came up to him and rudely asked who he was. Nanak replied:

Hindu kahiey tey maariey,
Mussalman bhi na;
Punj tat dha putla,
Nanak meyra naam.

[If I say I'm a Hindu, you'll beat me,
but neither am I a Muslim;
A man of five senses am I,
and Nanak is my name!]

A man of 5 senses - Taste, Touch, Smell, Sight and Sound. The same 5 senses that inform and form the art of cooking!

Now there is an important a caveat, a qualification, to this notion of Nomadic Cooking: when you're ill - certainly in England - you're obliged to have a bland diet. So, to get well, is to deny diversity!

And this must be countered with a hope-laden story: when I first came to England, in 1968, I heard many a disparaging comment on Asian cooking and, indeed, it was the practice to refuse to sell houses to Asians or to have Asians as neighbours because of the "horrible cooking smells". 30 years on, those same people are willingly introducing such "horrible smells" into their own homes, courtesy of supermarkets that now stock a whole range of Asian food!

A revolution has occurred in England - albeit only a revolution of taste-buds. But, if we follow Napoleon in his dictum that 'an army marches on its stomach', then it would not be too untrue to suggest that the march of cultural diversity will lead to victory - though we must not take this analogy too far: after all, Napoleon died in exile on the barren island of St. Helena!

As I hope is patently obvious from my talk, there are many twists and turns on the road of Inter- or Cross-culturalism. At the end of the day, it comes down to a belief: what kind of food do you want to have?!

October 1996 - Jatinder Verma