Drama with a conscience: Meet Space Theatre Ensemble

Three girls dressed in black stand holding hands in the middle of a circle of students seated on the concrete path outside the canteen of New Delhi's National Law University. It's dusk and without artificial light, their faces are obscured in the gathering gloom. Slowly, the three — sisters Andrea and Heidi Pereira, and Khatheeja Talha — raise their hands and begin, their voices rising and falling together in an insistent chant:

"The meat...the meat I have eaten since my cord was cut
The meat that had risen as bone of my bone
The meat that has raced as part of my blood
When you drove me far from my village
When you found even my footprint untouchable,
When you couldn't even see me as human
What stood by me and brought me here was beef...
...it was only beef that saved me
Stood by my side..."

It's an angry piece, referring to the recent ban on beef in Maharashtra and elsewhere. But this is no idle lament at shrinking culinary choices, the anti-beef ban objections voiced most frequently in the mainstream and social media. Instead, the reference here is to how the ban will affect Dalits for whom beef is often the only meat they can afford, and who are employed in large numbers in the cattle slaughter industry.

The audience, many of whom later tell the actors have never seen anything like it, is a little uncertain, clapping mutedly at the end.

To be sure, Space Theatre Ensemble (STE) is a unique act, bringing together, as the subtitle reads, 'Poetry, Freedom, Jazz and Resistance'. STE's repertory includes pieces on illegal mining in Goa (where STE is based), the late Union Carbide chief Warren Andersen and the rousing poetry of Pablo Neruda. Jazz is an important influence, says STE's colourful artistic director Hartman de Souza, for the way it "uses a lot of harmony and dissonance".

In many ways, it is de Souza who has shaped STE with his radical irreverence. His three influences — Badal Sircar, BV Karanth and Safdar Hashmi — are evident in STE's repertoire and style, which has elements of street theatre, choral singing and free, dance-like movements. As was evident during a long car-ride with the troupe, Hartman is the affectionate uncle who brings in an element of fun and creativity, the teacher who broadens the girls' horizons with things he's read or seen or heard over a life pursuing many things of which theatre, music, journalism and teaching are what he's known best for. He also keeps their focus on STE's radical agenda.

There's a spontaneous theatricality about him that STE uses as a deliberate gesture to break down barriers between actor and audience. For instance, Hartman casually prefaces the performance with a recipe for an organic mosquito repellent (dry cow dung cakes, lit and sprinkled on with a mix of neem leaves and lemongrass).

But the fun and games shouldn't belie STE's solid body of performances, workshops and residencies, especially with the young. Creatures of the Earth, its anti-mining performance, has been widely performed in various forums all over the country. STE is also one of the few troupes that goes out to remote rural outposts, taking the issues they talk about to the people directly affected. "It's a misconception we in the cities have that they won't understand. In our experience, they do and are often more responsive," says Andrea.