LesBiT Invite for Theatre Performance : Play- Reality Vs Reality
Venue- United Theological College, Benson Town, Bangalore
Date- 7/3/2012 Time- 6- 7 PM
Cast: Charu, Sathyakala, Keerthana, Sujatha Maahi Jhaveri and Sumathi
Script and Direction – LesBiT Collective
Who we are
LesBiT is an organisation working for lesbian, bisexual women and transgender men in Bangalore. We are a predominantly working class, dalit, female born sexual and gender minorities group. Our members have migrated from different Southern States to build our homes and community in Bangalore. LesBiT intervenes in situations of family, police, societal violence and informally provides logistical support, legal support and shelter to lesbians, bisexuals and trans persons in times of crisis. LesBiT does outreach work and builds alliances with other marginalised groups as we see all our struggles as being against a larger oppressive system.
Recently we have managed to become a truly independent collective with our own independent funding. We have a non-hierarchical decision making system where all the community members jointly and equally participate. The politics of each person’s personal journey and identity are considered valuable as we expand our understanding of gender, sexuality, caste, and class through the experiences of each of our members and members of the other marginalized groups we interact with.
Our Theatre Group
LesBiT also has an active theatre group which has performed several plays in the past.We believe that theatre is a good way to reach out to people and spread awareness about our community. We script our own plays and retell the story of our lives. Theatre, thus, for us, is not just a tool for raising social consciousness but our way of articulating our life stories. This is our first theater production in a while and with this play we look forward to once again generating awareness and outreach around the issues we face, around not just gender and sexuality, but also class, caste, and other aspects of our identities.
The Politics of Our Performance
This year, we have chosen the International Women’s Day to have the first performance of our play, Reality Vs Reality to be held at UTC Hall as part of the UTC Womens Studies Department “Inauguration of International Women’s Day Celebration”, from 6-7 P.M. We stand in solidarity to the idea with which Clara Zetkin (Leader of the ‘Women’s Office’ for the Social Democratic Party in Germany) tabled the proposal of an International Women’s Day in 1910 – to press for the demands of women. We believe that dalit women, lesbian women, bisexual women, adivasi women, transgender women and men, urban poor etc face the worst of the burden of the anti people policies of the government and also the patriarchal and sometimes outright misogynist structures of society.
To salute our various women comrades in struggle and to express our solidarity with all our militant sisters fighting for their rights, we present our play before you, hoping to throw light on some of the issues that our community faces. We are presenting three real life stories which talk about migration, forced marriage, restrictions on gender, forced pregnancy and the violence directed against our community through the lens of the intersections between caste, class and gender.