Listen to S. Shakthidharan in conversation with Ahilan Ratnamohan to uncover more about his performance, 'The Tamilization of Ahilan Ratnamohan'.
Through this candid chat, Shakthi and Ahilan explore their relationship to the Tamil language, family and learning across generations.
More about the speakers:
Shakthi is a western Sydney storyteller with Sri Lankan heritage and Tamil ancestry. His plays with Eamon Flack, Counting and Cracking (“One of the great Australian plays” - The Guardian) and The Jungle and the Sea, have won critical, commercial and community acclaim and toured internationally. He has a book, a film, plays and multi-disciplinary works in development. Shakthi is the Director of Kurinji, was previously Director of Co-Curious, and was Founder and Artistic Director of CuriousWorks from 2003-2018. His new play, The Wrong Gods, opens at Belvoir this May.
Cover headshot credit (left): Alex Vaughan
Australian performance artist Ahilan Ratnamohan is a polyglot who has the gift of picking up languages quickly. In addition, his past as a professional football player influences the movement practice he uses in his dancing presets. Since 2012, he lives in Antwerp and works throughout Europe, Sri Lanka and Australia. His work has been presented at Kunstenfestivaldesarts, Kaaitheater, Internationales SommerFestival, Kampnagel, Homo Novus, LIFT, Julidans, Monty Kultuurfaktorij and Colomboscope, among others.
More about the performance:
Utp presents The Tamilization of Ahilan Ratnamohan as a part of Sydney Festival 2025, from 16-19 January.
Ahilan attempts the performance entirely in Tamil, a language he didn’t learn as a child. His mother, sits next to him on stage, becomes his teacher, encouraging and prompting him. Ahilan traces the roots of this language loss to its rediscovery.
View performance times and more information here.
PARTNERS AND SUPPORTERS
This project is supported by the NSW Government through Create NSW.
This project has been assisted by the Australian Government through the Australia Council for the Arts, its arts funding and advisory body, its principal arts investment and advisory body.
This project is supported by Sydney Festival.