THOUGHTS FR A THEATRE AR
A Process of Healing and Decolonizi through Theatre and Vedic Medicine
by Nisha Ahuja
is only after colonial contact that there began the divide between art, medicines, meditation, spirit and politics.
T 10 iAM For many different peoples around the world art was
woven into spiritual practice and both of these were woven into political thought and action. They were not separate. The division of these is a colonial framework. And a capitalist one too. Divide and conquer wasn’t just a political strategy on a macro level, but one that seeped into our very essence of being. In this dividing, for centuries our voices, our stories, and our medicines were quieted. Ignored. Erased. Dividing ourselves from each other, and from ourselves. Through developing my craft in both theatre and Vedic medicine, I found healing and survival. (Yes, before Yoga
heatre and yoga saved my life. Literally. Or at least it was these two arts, or one could say medicines, that began a journey of healing. I use medicine and art interchangeably, because it
was diluted into the aerobic workouts we see here in North America, it was indeed and is indeed an intricate medicine system of my peoples, and although I am not formally trained to teach Yoga or Ayurveda I’m trying to spend much time in reclaiming these for myself and broader communities, and hope to formally train in these practices in the near future.) As a depleted teenager it was theatre that gave me a sense of being heard in a world that seemed uninterested in the stories, histories, thoughts, and visions of a big-bodied brown girl living in the suburbs of Ottawa. It was theatre and yoga that re-connected me to my body, the stories that lay within it, and an understanding of individuality that is deeply interconnected to every being in the universe: spiritually, socially, and politically. Now I continue in both these arts/medicines in an
attempt to decolonize my body, my mind, and my spirit. I hope to mobilize the same in our communities and society at large, for theatre is a collaborative art that is successful when it tells personally-connected stories that examine our society. Our medicines of Yoga and Ayurveda can be focused on an individual process, but spiritually examine and address community and generational stories, trauma
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