Information for/from Outsiders: Chronicles from Kashmir (2019)

"Information for/from Outsiders: Chronicles from Kashmir" has been in development since 2013, as a collaboration between Dr. Nandita Dinesh and the Ensemble Kashmir Theatre Akademi in Srinagar. Chronicles from Kashmir uses Argentine playwright Griselda Gambaro's (1992) Information for Foreigners as its point of departure; it takes place in the promenade and is site-adaptive. Chronicles from Kashmir seeks to create a sense of "balance": between differently positioned voices that emerge when speaking about Kashmir; between differently placed narratives on the "victim"/"perpetrator" spectrum. While there is an inevitable streak of political commentary that runs throughout the work, a political current that cannot be escaped when talking about Kashmir - Chronicles from Kashmir does not espouse any one political ideology. We see ourselves as being artists and educators, using aesthetics and pedagogy to engage audiences with diverse perspectives from/about the Valley. Chronicles from Kashmir, like any other performance, has its limitations. It can never do justice to all the narratives that compose Kashmir. It's a step, though, a small step toward engaging audiences in stories and experiences that mainstream media might never share with them; a small step toward sparking more educated, and less polarized, opinions about what is happening in the region.