Original article can be found here.

Spinning outside the artistic – and racial – boundaries
By Clare Morgan
March 22, 2006

The artists and performers who have spent the past year devising a
show about the migrant experience certainly haven’t been short of
material. From debate about Islamic culture to the Cronulla riots,
issues of race and national identity have dominated headlines for
months.

Those issues have found creative expression in The Migrant Project, in
which artists and performers with cultural heritages from around the
world have come together to weave music, dance, theatre, visual media,
sound, light and installation.

After 12 months in development, the project culminates this week with
Grounded. The first instalment, Standing, played at the Performance
Space last September, and Drifting, was part of the National
Multicultural Festival in Canberra last month.

The man behind The Migrant Project, Shakthidharan, says he wanted to
create art that moved away from compartmentalising migrants. “I have
seen some really amazing shows, often from quite mainstream
companies,” he says. “But I was thinking about it and realised they
are all very much about one particular culture, one particular issue.
I was worried that while they were fantastic shows, in a way they were
supporting the very thing they were criticising. They would be outside
everyday Australian life, and people would come and see it as being
outside Australian life.

“We wanted to explore what happens when these
things come into contact with each other. We talked a lot about that
and what came out was the idea that everything we have in common in
Sydney is our identity as migrants.” The 23-year-old set up the group
Curious Works to bring together “people who don’t usually meet each
other, ideas that don’t usually come together and community groups
that don’t normally speak to each other”. “To the extent that we could
manage it, they are a bunch of strangers in a room trying to find out
common points between each other. It was about people stepping outside
their boundaries, artistic as well as cultural.”

That has meant some creative friction: “The dancers want to know that
the whole story can be told in movement, and the musos say you can’t
do that. It’s about being co-dependent, and working that way is really
hard. We argue a lot but it’s all really good argument.”

The Cronulla riots inevitably get a mention, although Shakthidharan
says it is not in the context of an expose or laying blame. “With the
Tampa and the Cronulla riots, they’re all about this idea that some
group somehow possesses something,” he says. “If you start from the
viewpoint that all of us travelled here, and none of us own this
place, I think it would help things a lot.”

Conscious that some might regard the project as a leftie love-in,
Shakthidharan says: “It’s not about having a show that says ‘Howard’s
an arsehole’ or a show that says ‘Aren’t people beautiful?’ We want to
bring those things together to see them in contrast with each other.
There are parts of the show where people who are ‘left’ will be
challenged.”

He admits that whatever audiences take away from the performance, it’s
not going to change the world. “It’s a show, so it’s not going to
create legislative change. But unless you’re a superhero politician or
a really good leader, the arts is one area that can bring different
groups together.”

Primarily, he wants to celebrate Australia’s diversity. “It’s
unfortunate how desperate our need is to do that now. We are built on
migration – if we can just get that idea across, I’d be so happy. The
whole argument about who is Australian and what makes somebody an
Australian is a waste of time. What makes us Australian is what makes
us human beings.”

Grounded opens at the Seymour Centre on Friday.