CURRENT
FOREIGN BODY
★★★★ The Stage ★★★★ Hiive ★★★★ Miro Magazine
★★★★ Reviews Hub ★★★★ London Theatre 1 ★★★★⭑ Breaking the Fourth Wall
“A taut production… some of the best Vault Festival has on offer… impressive. … simple and holistic. … always engrossing… a sensitively-judged and effective piece... political theatre at its finest… formidable. … we all deserve to see more work like Foreign Body.” A Younger Theatre
“What’s so beautiful about this show is that the woman’s body... is so present, magnetic, its curves, its sinuous grace, responding with subtle inflection to the voices that surround it. Look, admire, don’t touch.” Medium (Maddy Costa)
“a beautifully crafted performance piece… an open and honest account… effortlessly interwoven [with] an accompaniment of carefully placed harmonics … self-assured... Foreign Body cuts to the core with grace and reminds us to heal.” Miro Magazine
“A truthful tender story of reclaiming the body after abuse. A beautiful and brave piece.... strikingly simple…. one of the most truthful explorations of the subject…. restrained direction... a stunning soundtrack… this show will only continue to grow and charge people with the courage to speak out.” Hiive
Foreign Body is a solo play about hope, healing and forgiveness after sexual assault. The play uses testimonial recordings to tell Imogen’s own story, that of the perpetrator of one of her own assaults and those of eight other survivors of sexual assault.
Foreign Body premiered at Southbank Centre’s WOW Festival in 2017 had a sell-out run at Soho Theatre, toured to festivals such as Brainchild, Clear Lines, VAULT Festival and WOW Exeter, had its international premiere in Dhaka, Bangladesh and will toured India (Mumbai, Guwahati, Bangalore, Pondicherry, Ahmedabad) in November 2018.
Credits, trailer and full website: www.foreignbodyplay.com
SHASHITO SHORIR
A cavernous, brutal verbatim play about healing after sexual assault comprising of choreography devised to recorded interviews with survivors. In English and Bengali. Developed in collaboration with DIKSHA, SWAYAM and Kolkata Sanved.
Performed at Padatik Theatre, Kolkata as part of the Indo-European Residency Project for the British Council, December 2019
Performed by Papia Chakrabarty, Suktara Khatun and Tilottama Chowdhury
Written and directed by Imogen Butler-Cole
From interviews with Tumpa Adhikary, Saptami Paul, Vidhi, Paramita Bannerjee, Saliya and Anjali
Choreographed by Vanessa Maria Mirza
Music by Debjit Mahalanobis
Lighting by Sumit Roy
Designed by Imogen Butler-Cole and Vanessa Maria Mirza
Sound edited by Rayan
Photography by Grace Gelder
Review from Telegraph India
Artwork created in response to the play by Vidhi T.
