Kwality Chai with Sapna Chandu at Melbourne Fringe Festival
Flinders Street Station
18 September ”“ 5 October
Flinders Street Station entrance to platform 1, opposite Degraves Street
Kwality Chai is an interactive and immersive Live Art performance from Melbourne-based artist Sapna Chandu that premieres this September at the Melbourne Fringe Festival. Kwality Chai imagines an alternate reality where governs Australia, and stages an extraordinary performance that revolves around the making and serving of tea.
Kwality Chai installs a unique golden chai cart at Melbourneʼs iconic Flinders street station. The dynamic public performance presents an animated Ê»chai-wallah (specialist Indian tea maker) who theatrically “pulls” spicy tea for commuters and passers by. From here, the alternate reality unfolds as the audience interact with a team of talented performers (playing waiters who speak in an invented Indian-Australian language), an immersive soundscape, a specially published newspaper (Kwality Times), and a “New World” radio station playing news, stories and beats.
This provocative new work presents an uncanny intervention into the every-day, drawing in an unsuspecting public as audience to experience Australiaʼs cross cultural identity, with the offer of tantilising Indian Chai.
Australian-Indian artist Sapna Chandu works with site-specific installations & has a special interest in cross-cultural stories. She says,“I grew up in Melbourne in a small Indian community and am interested in the effect of mass migration on collective culture – how this creates a new language of communication and social exchange.”
Chandu hopes to stimulate the audienceʼs imagination and senses beyond fears of an enemy invasion, to value the “unique and playful exploration of the legacy of cultural imperialism in a distinctlyAustralian context.” She intends to offer a space for contemplation and participation in a settingwhere the human spirit embraces change in creative and enterprising ways.”
Kwality Chaiʼs gifted creative team includes Shash Lall (producer and drama director), Annisa Dharma (Kwality Times editor), Byron Scullin (sound design), Sharon Johal, Luke DʼEmannuelle, Dushan Philips and Jan DiPietro (performers).
For more information about this media release please contact:
Shash Lall shashlall@yahoo.com 0409 757 238
Dates and Times:
18th September ”“ 5th October 2014. Performance times are Thurs-Sun, 10am ”“ 2pm except
on Launch Night Thursday 18th September 4-8pm. Entrance FREE
Short URL: https://indiandownunder.com.au/?p=3838