The Telepathy Project, artists Veronica Kent and Sean Peoples, presented Dreaming the Arabian Sea as part of the [en]counters program, a performance on Juhu Beach, North Mumbai, Sunday 20 January from 5pm.
The Telepathy Project developed a process-based performance, exploring alternative routes, dream and telepathic communication. The absurdist, rambunctious and whimsical Dreaming the Arabian Sea featured Sean and Veronica acting out a series of vignettes inspired by the dreams that the pair had during their stay in India, presented at sunset on Juhu Beach, facing out to the Arabian Sea.
Letting the experiences and context of Mumbai literally shape their project, via their subconscious, the dreams they recalled and documented together each morning formed the action and the spoken or sung texts for each dream, which were performed by the artists, a singer-guitarist and a sitar player. The costumes and props were sourced locally or made during their stay at Last Ship studio in Bandra, Mumbai, and portraits painted for the faces of each character in the dreams. The 90 minute event was presented to imaginary and real audiences: on the other end of the seas, acting as transmissive medium for the dream images, the artists had arranged colleagues and collaborators in Amsterdam, Barcelona and Paris, and a group of children on Juhu Beach, to ‘receive’ and live-draw the dreams transmitted by the performance.
The artists have also created an animated interpretation of documentation taken during the performance, and the images sketched by the receiving collaborators that interpret the dreams they received.
The Dreaming the Arabian Sea performance featured Veronica Kent, Sean Peoples, Mia Tinkler, J.J. Gregg and Elise Foster Vander Elst. The live drawing groups were led in Mumbai by Jess Cantor and Cayla Skillin-
The Australian component of the [en]counters program was curated by Simon Maidment and received support by the Australian Government through the Australia Council, its arts funding and advisory body, the Victorian Government through Arts Victoria, and the Victorian College of the Arts, University of Melbourne and Last Ship, Julius Macwan Institute. It was presented by Satellite Art Projects in partnership with Asia Arts Projects and ArtOxygen.
