Latest Theatre Review: Kwality Chai

In an alternate reality, where India governs Australia, honking is mandatory, chai is pulled not poured, and Next Gen cross-cultural hipsters are born. Kwality Chai offers an immersive experience, drawing audiences into the lifestyle of this new world.  This extraordinary performance revolves around the making and serving of tea. Excite your tastebuds, listen to new world sounds, and read about the latest happenings in Kwality Times. Come experience a new world of chai in a new world order! Be immersed in this uncanny realityThis interactive and immersive Live Art performance from Melbourne-based artist Sapna Chandu that premieres this September at the Melbourne Fringe Festival.

Sapna Chandu is an emerging artist/curator. Currently working with site-specific installations, her art explores cross-cultural narratives.

Kwality Chai installs a unique golden chai cart at Melbourne’s iconic Flinders street station. The dynamic public performance presents an animated ‘chai-wallah (specialist Indian tea maker) who theatrically “pulls” spicy tea for commuters and passers by. From here, the alternate reality unfolds as the audience interact with a team of talented performers (playing waiters who speak in an invented Indian-Australian language), an immersive soundscape, a specially published newspaper (Kwality Times), and a “New World” radio station playing news, stories and beats.

This provocative new work presents an uncanny intervention into the every-day, drawing in an unsuspecting public as audience to experience Australia’s cross cultural identity, with the offer of tantilising Indian Chai.

Australian-Indian artist Sapna Chandu works with site-specific installations & has a special interest in cross-cultural stories. She says,“I grew up in Melbourne in a small Indian community and am interested in the effect of mass migration on collective culture – how this creates a new language of communication and social exchange.”

Chandu hopes to stimulate the audience’s imagination and senses beyond fears of an enemy invasion, to value the “unique and playful exploration of the legacy of cultural imperialism in a distinctly Australian context.” She intends to offer a space for contemplation and participation in a setting where the human spirit embraces change in creative and enterprising ways.”

Kwality Chai’s gifted creative team includes Shash Lall (producer and drama director), Annisa Dharma (Kwality Times editor), Byron Scullin (sound design), Sharon Johal, Luke D’Emannuelle, Vince Conti and Jan DiPietro (performers).

Kwality Chai’s is kindly supported by The City of Melbourne, Australia Council for the Arts, Arts Victoria, The Besen Foundation and Metro.