During the early research period for Glorious, Rajni performed a short piece called Hope as part of SPIELART's Woodstock of Political Thinking event in Munich.
It begins as each person enters.
When they have taken a seat, Rajni pours water into each person’s hands, and asks them to hold the water.
After everyone has entered, Rajni walks onto stage and a steward pours water into her hands, and she, facing everyone else, holds the water for as long as possible.
The light imperceptibly fades from a bright sad blue to a peaceful darkness.
She stands in a felt dress. She looks at you. You look at her. As simple as that.
We listen to voices beginning to translate, trying to hold on to their languages as the plan breaks down.
Some of you pass the water between each other. Tears are shed. A song is sung.
Our laps and shoes are damp, our hands are open, we are watching an empty wet stage and a microphone, listening to the echoes of voices falling and faltering.
Listen to the soundtrack from Hope: hope-final.mp3
performed by Rajni Shah
with the voices of Chloé Déchery (representing French), Rainer Knupp (representing German), Natasha Davis (representing Serbo-Croatian, Croato-Serbian), Li E Chen (representing Mandarin), Helena Suarez (representing Spanish) Ole Birkeland (representing Norwegian), Maria Agiomyrgiannaki (representing Greek)
For further details on The Woodstock of Political Thinking and Spielart please visit www.spielart.org