Brown Church | The Naavikaran Collective

I panic silently as the doors to The Tivoli open. I fret some more as I find a chair for myself and sink into it. I sit upright. I feel my jaws tighten. The theatre is awash with warm purple lights and from where I am seated, the brazenly flashy disco ball is in my direct line of vision. I am in pop heaven. Lady Gaga’s ‘Telephone’ has come on. It is also the song which features Beyoncé. Incidentally, it is Queen Bey’s birthday. I know a party awaits, but first I must pray. ‘Please let me not get in the way of enjoying this’, I say to myself.  It is a plea to my senses and sensibilities to receive The Naavikaran Collective’s communion with keenness and kindness.

Images: Atmosphere Photography

A little part of my private history is home to a litany of confessions: Drag unsettles me. It is unfamiliar territory. Its shiny sequin-laced getup and flawless contoured makeup loudness is an affront to my own trauma of having been made to feel invisible in my younger years at dance class.  Personally, it feels as if the flamboyance, fabulousness, and unshakeable confidence of drag is unattainable. 

It is not them. It is me, my work-in-progress response to my hang-ups and deep hurts. These secrets of mine make me feel as if my allyship is far too prudish and fraudulent to be of any good to the queer diaspora. I decide to distract myself before my perceived potential inability to appreciate the show I am about to watch does my head in. I survey the crowd below and around me. The space is abuzz with chatter and a camaraderie I seem to be missing out on. I am alone but also feel undeniably moved by the atmosphere created. The vibe is electric. I groove to the beat in spite of my nervous energy.

It is the second day of this venue having to morph itself into a makeshift altar for queer holiness. I have been summoned by chance and circumstance to witness it. 

As a woman of colour whose personal and intergenerational narratives have been stained and shaped by oppression, colonialism, and racism, I can acknowledge that these political tensions do reside uncomfortably in my physical body and psyche. However as a cisgender and heterosexual female, I have always lived with the privilege of passing off as some semblance of normal, even opting to painfully and deliberately operate inconspicuously in some social settings.

Images: Atmosphere Photography

An inky darkness suddenly envelopes the theatre. Naavikaran’s voice fills the venue. “Welcome to Brown Church. Welcome home.” Something about these parting words of their prologue uttered so warmly in pitch-black silence has me choked with emotion. The mood is uplifted at once when Brown Church opens with the racy number, ‘Where Are You From?’ Naavikaran’s lyrical genius is no sleight of hand. This is not a well-rehearsed rendition of imagery and sentiment strung together for pure performative pleasure. One understands that the wellspring of their immersive musical storytelling ways is an invitation to journey with and access Naavikaran’s former selves in the most precious, private, and sacred of spaces situated within and outside of their complex being. 

The Naavikaran Collective is indeed a “parade of coloured babes”. In rapt attention, I watch them sing, shimmy, sashay, and slay with a sense of unabashed cheerful assertiveness. Intuition tells me that every single one of them on stage must have come a long way to be able to show themselves and share their presence with us so generously. By virtue of all of that, I can conclude that Brown Church is, in a myriad of ways, an offering most spirited.

Images: Atmosphere Photography

The fact that a platform was created to serve as an ode to queer survival, resilience, and joy feels like a magnificent feat. The weight of all that hoping, dreaming, and manifesting is palpable. Naavikaran and their artist-collaborators are determined to take up and own space unapologetically. The lush soundscapes brought to life by musician Levi Kohler complemented the seemingly nebulous nature of the choreography. The artists expressed themselves dynamically in whatever ways felt true to them. The freedom to explicitly command the audience to take them as they were was both refreshing and slightly challenging for me. As a trained dancer, I wanted to see dance executed with uninhibited abandon as well as the finesse of highly articulated training; the latter was absent.

Set against the aural backdrop of rhythmic syllables ‘Thakita Thikita Tha Tha’, the Kathak interlude presented was a small, but significant instance where more technical training was needed. There is nothing wrong with fragments of non-Western culture picked and packaged for aesthetic value-adding and more, but it does face the danger of coming across as gimmicky when not presented as well as it could have been, and  delivered in haste. Nuance should serve to enhance. Kathak as a visual storytelling medium was underutilised. Additional technical training would have enabled the artists to have emoted and executed the steps with more conviction.

Images: Atmosphere Photography

However, it is not long before I find myself completely taken in by the artists who have now formed a circle of celebration, clapping their hands to time. Naavikaran’s white flowy skirt accented with silvery foil-like material has a life force of its own. The other performers look equally royal in their costumes, twirling, swirling, locking eyes with one another, immersing themselves in the beauty and safety of friendships they have forged amongst themselves.  I smile so much at the unfolding of this dance sequence simply because it is unadulterated, unpretentious joy. The movements also remind me of a Tamil village dance form known as Kummi Attam. In those brief moments, I feel a connection to my foremothers who danced this way for years on their ancestral land.

For all my worrying that I will never fully understand the queer experience, I come to terms that it is okay that I never will for that is precisely the point. Its magic lies in its cosmic expansiveness and generous inclusiveness. “Some would say we are blessing the festival,” says Naavikaran to the crowd. I laugh but I also think it to be true. The sheer presence of Brown Church is a blessing to begin with. Brown Church is built on the bedrock of memory (the good, the bad, and the ugly), strong cultural and ancestral connections, and invisible queer histories fighting to be seen, heard, accepted, and celebrated. Brown Church is where we can go home to make irreverence for elitist structures our shared religion. Embracing queer holiness is about dismantling hierarchical constructs such as colonized mindsets and capitalistic attitudes which thrive on territorializing, anticipating predictable outcomes, and seizing control of our inherent worthiness. Brown Church is an imperfectly wonderful theatrical spectacle, and I look forward to seeing its growth into a performance of spectacular glory.