‘Lori’: A performance that depicts the plight of children in Gaza

A woman in a refugee camp in Gaza steps out of her tent amid a barrage of airstrikes. Buildings are razed, terrifying screams fill the air as she scrambles for cover. Once the bombing stops, she witnesses the devastation. Then she hears a child’s cry and rescues her from beneath the piles of bodies. The woman comforts her with empty words: the mother’s merely asleep, the brother is chasing butterflies of his dreams, and the sister has married into another land.

This is a heartwrenching scene from Lori, a solo by Aranyani Bhargav, a Bharatanatyam dancer and artistic director, Vyuti Dance Company. The performance is presented by Indian Dancers for Gaza's Children (IDGC), which Bhargav co-founded with Donovan Roebert, a South African scholar of Indian dance on 15 May, 2024 (Nakba day). Lori is based on Faiz Ahmed Faiz’s poem, A Lullaby For A Palestinian Child, recited here by actor, Shabana Azmi.

The poem touched Bhargav for truly portraying the current reality of Gaza even though it was written in 1981. The words of resistance and empathy depict the suffering of Palestinian children living under war. Although the artist has not interacted directly with the children in Gaza, she knows of the issues they face through her fundraising work. “We were supporting treatment for emergent trauma surgeries including amputations, and psychological rehabilitation that follows this sort of altering injury. We receive regular updates with photographs and videos in this context,” she adds.

The sound design by Bengaluru-based Fragment of Light adds to the emotional tenor of the performance. “All contributors for all the fundraisers have worked pro bono. Everyone, from the youngest artists to senior ones like Shabana Azmi have risen up to the cause,” says Bhargav. She emphasises that Lori is a humanitarian appeal more than a political one. “Children are innocent. They are not politically aligned nor choose religious identities.”

However, given the changing geopolitics of Asia, Bhargav has had to be careful. She was constantly talking to lawyers, academics, researchers and activists, who had done this before. “I'm not an activist. I'm an artist, I have always been inclined towards activism and questioning norms but it's always been through my dance,” she says.

Today, IDGC is a global movement, which involves not just dancers but people from all walks of life. “Our solidarity list consists of over 920 people and organisations from 32 countries,” she says. So far it has conducted 36 fundraisers and solidarity events in India and abroad to help with treatment of children. “We are not a not-for-profit or a registered organisation, so we don't have any formal funding. It's impossible for me to travel to every city to oversee the fundraisers but remotely I'm very much there. And that's how we function,” says Bhargav.

Roebert calls Lori a courageous work, touched with grace and vulnerability. “[It is] A vivid testimony to the power of humane art to arouse compassion and inspire active help for those trapped in a cycle of merciless and unending violence,” he adds.

‘Lori’ will be performed on 13 March at the M.S. Subbulakshmi Auditorium, Asian College of Journalism, Chennai, at 5.30 pm.