Here’s your chance to meet Hänsel and Gretel, in real time

It’s last stop Bengaluru for the award-winning Swiss theatre company, Trickster P, which is touring India with the show .h.g. (Hänsel and Gretel). The immersive theatre installation is a physical and sensory journey through nine rooms, to be experienced by each audience member, alone, with the help of headphones. Dabbling between ferocity and childlike lightness, .h.g.revisits the fairy tale from a completely different perspective. Presented by Sandbox Collective, with support from Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia, the performance will be showcased at Bangalore International Centre from October 2 to 6. In a conversation with Bangalore Times, Cristina Galbiati, who has conceptualised and designed the piece along with Ilija Luginbühl, gives us more insight into the production and also tells us how India influences her craft. Excerpts:
.h.g. has already toured Delhi, Puducherry and Chennai. Tell us about your experience…
Presenting .h.g. in different cities is a great opportunity for us. It is very fascinating to discover how each place has a different energy and a different audience. This mixture of audiences of different ages, cultures and interests is an important element in our work. We always try to find a medium that can be open to diversity and communicate at different levels. In contemporary times, it is pertinent for the arts to take up this challenge and move away from disciplinary distinctions.
There are so many fairy tales, is there are a particular reason to choose Hänsel and Gretel?
Despite being considered a fairy tale for children, Hänsel and Gretel is an extremely brutal story. During the creative process, we came across the research of a German university professor, who devoted much of his work to demonstrating that the fairy tale actually came from a true story, and that idea has strongly influenced the construction of .h.g. The many archetypal elements in it – the childhood house, the forest, the encounter with the evil and the victory over it – intrigued us to investigate how these aspects can also be present in reality. The relationship between reality and metaphor is quite interesting.
More fairy tales coming up?
.h.g. is followed by B (Biancaneve, Snow White in Italian) – a 2012 creation, which is still touring. The third episode of the trilogy on fairy tales is not in place yet. In B too, the spectator moves in solitude from one space to the other guided by earphones. However, unlike in .h.g., where the space is neutral and the focus is on the small details in each room, in B, each space has its own precise characteristic. This installation is more complex and therefore, it is difficult to tour with the piece outside Europe. Having said that, showcasing it in India one day will be a dream come true.
What is your take away from India?
India has a great influence on my work. It is a country that I have had the opportunity to visit assiduously, and there are aspects of its culture that resonate strongly in me. What I strongly find in India is the relationship with matter and materials, and, therefore, with the different atmospheres, which is a central part of our work. There are many Indian artists, who are important references for me. For instance, Bengaluru-based contemporary artist Sheela Gowda’s transposition of a culture and her vision through a strongly physical matter have had an influence on us.