This information provides a detailed description of the visual aspects of the performance for the Pātaka Art+Musuem presentation of The Girmit. Please be aware that it may include information (spoilers) about the content of the show.
The performance of The Girmit on Friday, 28 February 2025, at Pātaka Art+Museum will be a highly auditory performance with an integrated audio description explaining the activities happening on stage.
The show will begin with a prerecorded karakia. After the Karakia, Mr Arakati will enter the stage. He will be wearing brown pointed shoes, business trousers, a shirt, a blazer and a fedora hat. On the stage next to him will be a large paper flipchart on an easel.
Mr Arakati will deliver a sales pitch to persuade the audience to sign up for Destination Plantation to work on a sugar cane farm in Fiji. He will flip through pages of graphs and handwritten quotes that he will describe and read from. Once his presentation is complete Mr Arakati will walk off stage, taking the flip chart with him to end the scene.
Nadia and Harshaa will then enter the stage wearing green and copper-coloured Indian outfits, Indian silver earrings and bare feet. Nadia will stand behind her synthesisers centre stage, and Harshaa will sit on the floor behind her Tablas (two small Indian hand drums). Nadia will introduce them both and explain the instruments they are about to play before the narrations start.
Narrations will play throughout the show. With each new narration, Nadia will place a 2kg sugar bag on the floor. Eventually, these will form a rectangle shape on the floor that is 3m by 2m (10 feet by 7 feet). This area is the width and length of the cabins that an indentured family would have had to live in.
For the final song, Nadia will play the first beats of the music and will roll out two flax mats in the middle of the sugar bag rectangle. This is to symbolise establishing a home in Fiji. Once the mats are rolled out, Nadia will begin singing.
Touch Tour
A touch tour will be conducted at 6.30pm. For this tour, a crew member will guide blind and low-vision audience members who want to feel the instruments and props used for sound sampling.
Please pre-book for the touch tour by emailing Nadia at iammissleading@gmail.com by 12pm on 28 February 2025.
Miss Leading Productions 