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Portal Waiting
How Will the Future See Us?
Performer
Portal Waiting is a show that is written, developed and performed by Abhi Tambe. Taking its core inspiration from his music album with the same name (released on November 17, 2023), the show is a 74 minute piece of speculative fiction that ponders the question, “How will the future look back at us?”.
During the performance, we are taken into a post dystopian future world in which two characters with contrasting ideologies occupy the ground and the sky. While they argue their respective positions they also repeatedly refer back to a time in the past, a critical moment, when the path of human history took a dramatic turn. They wonder whether there was any way in which the calamity that followed could have been avoided and if it was too high a price to pay for the strange versions of utopia that they each now have. As we are drawn into the show it becomes clearer that the time they are looking back upon is the very time that we live in today; that their questions are really our questions; that the argument that they are having might be the same one that plays out within each of us.
This show is unabashedly focused on the medium of sound. It is presented as a highly immersive headphones-only experience – the performer and every audience member is given a pair of headphones. Additionally, shortwave radio is an important device in the storytelling. Headphones not only enhance the various sonic elements that constitute the show – the intricately crafted sound design, dialogue and live performances of the songs from the album – but also play an important role in the story itself; with each listener submerged in their own private listening world, a show with three lonely characters asks them a big question: what is the cost of our individual freedom and who ends up paying the price?
Please note: The show is an immersive headphone experience and runs for 75 minutes. It will be experienced entirely through the headphones we will provide. Please ensure that you arrive by 6pm, collect your headphones and are seated no later than 6:30 pm. We will run a short test to make sure all headphones are functioning as intended, and the show will begin at 6:40pm sharp.
In collaboration with:
Performer
Abhi Tambe
Abhi Tambe is a musician, a storyteller and a compulsive wanderer based out of Bangalore, India. Apart from being an accomplished singer-songwriter, he also enjoys scoring for theatre and films. He holds an M.S. in Music Engineering Technology and his interdisciplinary practice over the last 20 years spans across the worlds of music, sound design, field recording, film & theatre, and spoken word. Portal Waiting is the culmination of all these practices as he attempts for the first time, to bring them all together into a single work. This show is presented as an immersive headphones-only experience that is surely a first of its kind offering. After successful previews in Bangalore and Berlin, the show opened in Bangalore along with the release of the 6-song album on November 17, 2023. A tour for 2024 is currently being planned.
