Every inch of a voice

An interactive audio-only production shares stories that explore closeness in relationships, and encourage listeners to connect with strangers

Sound is intimate. It leans over and bids us to follow. And, as we scamper behind it, our memory stacks trills, clicks and clunks over heavy thuds and thumps. Sound — with and without a visual cue — evolves in character. For instance, try to hear an entangled mass of VFX tape being shaken over and over; it’s distracting until supplemented with visuals of the gentle swishing of a bush. Koyel Sahoo and Phalguni Vittal Rao, students of Drama School Mumbai (DSM), were perhaps attracted by this mystifying nature of sound.

Koyel Sahoo

The duo conceived Inching Closer, an audio-only compilation, during the second phase of the pandemic. “We pitched the idea for a grant from our acting school, while being aware of our want to toy with the audio space. In the absence of circumstances needed for any offline project, the audio medium stood out as an option we could both take up and complete,” shared Sahoo, who has directed the piece. But what made them look at diverse shades of intimacy through stories? Rao replies, “Our initial days involved a lot of back and forth over the themes and tropes we wanted to incorporate in the collection. While I wrote, Koyel read and edited the draft. Intimacy and relations, as topics of life, were turned on their head during the pandemic. We wanted to witness people coming together and getting to know one another. In that span, we also realised that despite the popularity of several dating apps, it was hard to carry on conversations after a point.” The writer reminisces how listening to music and stories on the radio could create a world in her young, impressionable mind. The production will take that feeling of intrigue a step ahead through its interactive format.

Phalguni Vittal Rao

With three stories in their kitty — that navigate friendship and comfort, desire and polyamory, and recollections and second chances — the duo is looking forward to audiences finding faith in building a spontaneous connection with strangers, too. Supported by the DSM Alumni Production Grant, this piece is about chance encounters ‘voiced’ while discovering other chance associations.      

On April 9, 7 pm; April 10, 8 pm 
At Digital event 
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Cost Rs 299 onwards

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