Rendez-vous with Pankaj Tiwari

What’s your current obsession?

Water bodies. I want to create thing on water bodies. 

Who is your role model?

My parents.

What gives you hope?

At the moment the next generation give me a lot of hope. I see lot of active participation of the next generation in the change process around the globe. 

Current project you are excited about? 

I am trying to make the next creation, which is called WE WANT EVERYTHING, and the whole show is going to be on the water in boats, so I am very excited about that. An Opera on the water. 

Craziest thing that happened during a performance?

I have rehearsed almost all the possible scenarios, so nothing seems crazy anymore.  But long back an incident happened, when I was performing in India, and the other guy was supposed to hit me from his sword. But during the fight with me, his sword broke, and the person almost froze, we had practiced before that if it happens, he can kill me from his hands, but he just froze, then i had to kill myself on the stage, that was funny.

What continues to inspire you as an artist? 

I make art from necessity, and the necessity to say something is what continues me to inspire. 

Which show still makes you wonder, left a long lasting impression? 

There are a lot, but long back I saw work from India theatre director Ratan Thiyam, and his visuals made a lasting impact. 

Who would be your ideal collaborator?

Collaboration is a continues negation of understanding each other. Its going through a lot of failures to find someone who share and understand each others language (not literal, rather political, sensitivity, aesthetics). I enjoy the process, I am not yet there to fix it. I found few already and am in the process to find others. 

What are issues in the theater world that need to be addressed more?

The stereotypes that non-Europeans can or should only talk about problems in their country, really needs to change. A lot of us moved here because we didn’t had any other choice. Now we want to live and work here as an artist, let us choose the topic, content, aesthetics, politics, don’t expect us to make the same shit. We are beyond our color, we have embodied experience, knowledge and different perspectives, we also have opinions about the politics on/of Europe and we should be allowed and supported to make work about that here as well.

If you wouldn’t work in performance art, what would your other dream job be? 

I would like to cook and host people and run a small place where people can feel home.