Lead Akanchha Karki on her role in ANTIGONE IN NEPAL I see Antigone as a daring, spirited woman. But at the same time she is caught by the pressures of being viewed as a particular type of woman. She struggles with her identity of who she wants to be and how she wants to be: with what she has to do instead or sacrifise her own happiness. Women are still a long way to go in terms of attaining liberalization. We cannot consider a small group of liberal urban women as the whole because it doesn't represent the entire gender all together. However there have been developments in the recent years, with more girls attaining and education and being able to stand up for themselves and make decisions, which should never sound like a privilege but it was for many years. Women are also attaining liberalization through talks about sexuality and identity that wouldn't be discussed or would be considered taboo otherwise. It begins with more and more women being aware and educated and in turn supporting eacbother which is a struggle everywhere. I, being an actor for all these years still struggle very much when it comes to the public gaze. I still hesitate to wear certain types of clothes in a public sphere. The shoot was uncomfortable in the beginning because of the staring but with time it got liberating. In Nepal people like to watch even if nothing is happening so when they saw a huge crowd gather and few young men and women and foreigners, they got excited. They would take out their phones, try to get near, talk about the crazy people on the scene among each other, laugh, mock or watch with amusement. Oliver had very improvisational directions for each other some of which included close physical touch, and this no matter how liberal we are is still little uncomfortable to perform in public naturally. I found myself worry if anyone who knew me would be watching and complain to my mother that I was almost locking lips with a strange guy at an open mass. Of course these are the societal voices that one has internalise and find it hard to let go. However my most liberating moment was the scene where I was dressed in white and had to paint freedom and walk out breaking the human chain formed very naturally by gaping mass comprising mostly of men spectators. We took several takes to get a perfect shot and each time I walked past breaking the chain I felt more and more powerful. I heart hushed voices that showed fear, bewilderment, laughter and assumptions. As I passed some remarked 'oh she must be a witch' because in Nepal any woman clad in white is a widow and in the earlier days widows would be considered as demonic women who take lives of their husbands hence termed witches. That belief still pertains in certain illiterate communities and minds in Nepal.
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September 2019
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