For the past year, Mallika Taneja has been in a process of dealing with deep personal loss and its grief, culminating into the work Do You Know this Song? Diving into her own experience, and using dolls and song, among other things, she tried to find artistic answers to some of her inquiries. How does one voice grief? How does the process of grieving relate to a movement as simple as walking? And how can theatrical forms of walking, voicing, singing and talking aid these processes

In this workshop, we will make small dolls, that will become our companions, to walk around, and pause. We will find spaces and places to place ourselves, our voices and our little dolls. We will weave stories out of memory and hopefully, at the end, we will all sing together.

Together with Chayan Adhikari who brings in song and Sangeet Shrivastava who will help us build the dolls, Mallika extends the process of building Do You Know This Song? to other participants and invites them to walk, ever so gently, towards their own losses and voices. 

This workshop is open to everyone, no prior knowledges are needed. The workshop language will be English, but all languages are welcome. The workshop lasts until 16:00.

Please bring a cloth or textile that has a meaning to you or that is connected to someone you lost, of a time that you remember or of memory that is attached to it.

The workshop happens in the frame of Mallika Taneja’s performance Do You Know This Song? that will be shown on 12 and 13 October at Beursschouwburg. You are not expected to attend the show, but it would be great if you could join us!

Mallika Taneja lives and works in New Delhi, India. In her performances, installations and curatorial works, she deals with questions of gender, solidarity, silence and memory. She is particularly interested in the political possibilities of a performative ensemble and the role that songs play in leaving and collecting traces of people, places and things. Her works and collaborative spaces include Be Careful, Allegedly, Rest of the Struggle and Women Walk at Midnight. She was awarded the ZKB Acknowledgment Prize for 'Be Careful' in 2015 and the ZKB Patronage Prize for 'Allegedly' in 2021 at Zürcher Theaterspektakel. In autumn 2021, Beursschouwburg produced and presented the digital version of her piece Allegedly live on Zoom.