What might it mean to remember the Mountain with our mixed-ability and moving bodies, with our thinking, with our sensing, and with our imaginings? What might it mean for our communities and for the well-being of the Earth in this place? As we move toward the Mountain, the Mountain also approaches us, connecting us through pathways of resonance and storytelling to the stories of mountains that speak to one another across both India and the US.
As it evolves the BRM Project—as a series of theatrical performances, installations, scholarly inquiries, and mixed-ability workshops—examines mountains, land, rocks, and plants as focal and inclusive sites for storytelling, art-making, and ecological reimaginings of our relations to the Earth.
The BRM Project 2023 is an archival, ethnographical, and critical performance study of Kailasodharanham (Lifting Mount Kailash) that examines how the performing body of Kutiyattam engages with the questions of eco-aesthetics. This research, which included a study of Kerala stories about mountains and their communities, resulted In the Blue Houses Dream the Mountains a live/virtual intercultural bi-lingual theatre work on mountains and climate change and the first ever Accessible Theatre Production for live theatre work in Kerala, with interpretation in Indian Sign Language and audio description in Malayalam. This project formed part of Dr. Kanta Kochhar-Lindgren’s Fulbright-Nehru Senior Scholar Research (April- December 2023).
Towards a Different Earth (TDE), a collaboration on an Accessible Eco-Theatres Arts Residency, will connect college youth, Deaf/Hard-of-hearing and Blind/VI communities, service providers for Indian Sign Language (ISL) and Audio Description, and theatre practitioners in Thrissur, India, with experts in Accessible Theatres. TDE involves the co-development of a performance methodology for engaging a diverse, mixed ability community with Kerala and US stories on mountains and climate change. Capacity-building through webinars, workshops, and a performance mini-series with a final public showing will enable us to develop a “how-to” documentary film-short on Accessible Eco-Theatres for distribution across Indian and US audiences. This project is a Citizen Diplomacy Action Fund grant, part of Exchange Alumni & Global Ties US funding.
Weavings (WE)—a mixed-ability, multi-media theatre work which took place from June 1-16, 2025—connected college youth, theatre and dance artists, and educators from non-disabled and disabled communities, especially Deaf/Hard-of hearing and Blind/VI, from across India. As an interdisciplinary, cross-cultural, and mixed-ability performance initiative, it foregrounds inclusive arts practices in contemporary theatre-making. The development of an immersive performance, portable set design, and future readiness methodology focused on an exploratory poetics of weaving toward peace. Weavings, a traveling interactive theatre installation showcased ways to reimagine artmaking through an ethics of access, care, and collective creativity.
Weathered Theatre (April 2026)—a theatre installation devised with a mixed ability group of performers with a focus on Deaf-hard-of-hearing, Blind/VI, other disabilities, and nondisabled—examines how a multisensory theatre project can act as a site for the ecocritical enquiry of the ecologies of weathering and plants in Kerala.
