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[Photo Credit: Axelle/Bauer-Griffin/Getty Images]
“Yoni ki Raat,” the New York City-based spin-off of Bay Area’s “Yoni ki Baat,” is influenced by “The Vagina Monologues.” Ten South Asian-American and Indo-Carribean women performed a series of monologues overlapping different subjects including whiteness, culture, racism, sexuality, and more on May 12 and 13. The women weaved tales from personal experiences and talked about subjects deemed taboo in our society.
Yumnah Syed, 25, joined the team as a cast member last year — the first year for YKR. This year, she is co-director. They have incorporated dance and movement to this year’s show. “We knew that the stories we told would touch some audience members based on shared identities, with other for the shared experiences,” Syed said. “And still others, just based on the fact that the stories shared on stage were our individual truths.”
She believes that the show is a great space for the South Asian and Indo-Carribean women, transgenders, and gender nonconforming artists to share their stories. Their goal for the NYC version was simple — “to assemble a group of South Asian women who wanted to tell their stories.”
Syed co-directed the show with Debi Kar. Both of them participated in the 2015 performance. Maybe that’s why there was no shyness or reservation in their mind as they went on to direct this year’s show. Based on the overwhelming and positive response they have received, Syed said it is clear to them just how badly this space is needed.
Personally, “Yoni ki Raat” has impacted Syed profusely, she said.
“It has helped me put into words some extremely difficult aspects of my life which I then bared to hundreds of strangers on stage,” she said. “The process doesn’t start with the stories we tell on stage. We spend week after week meeting to work on story excavation, get into our bodies, and help us figure out what stories are coming up for us throughout the process, which of the stories are itching to be told.” As a participant last year, it helped her understand the complexities of the stories they told. Moving up as a co-director helped her gain a new confidence, she thought. “The most incredible part of performing, for me, is having people come up to me after the show, and tell me that my story resonated with them,” she said. “It is both, beautiful and heartbreaking.”
Most importantly, as members of the South Asian diaspora, they hope to help break the silence -we carry, the trauma we repress as a society and culture. They said they hope to break taboos on certain topics and encourage discussion and healing through their work. “We want the audience to take away whatever it is they are feeling during Yoni ki Raat and just sit with it. The final monologue of this year’s show centered around the idea that it is okay to simple feel and to just be,” Syed said. “We really wanted to let the audience know it is okay.”
Finally, they want the audience to take away a whole new understanding of what it means to be a South Asian or Indo-Carribean.
Co-founded by Nitika Raj and Aaliya Zaveri, who were inspired by “Yoni ki Baat,” which when translated means “Talks of the Vagina,” “Yoni ki Raat” means “Nights of the Vagina.”
It is an entirely grassroots production for which they crowdfunded all the performances. The proceeds from the ticket sales were donated to two agencies whose missions are in line with their own beliefs, Syed shared. Sakai for South Asian Women, an NYC-based agency helping survivors of violence, and FIERCE, another NYC membership-led organization building the LGBT youth of color from ages 13-24.
As for their performances next year, Syed said they have picked two cast members to co-direct in 2017. It was decided that the cast would rotate every year.
“After two successful years, we want to see YKR continue to grow,” she said.
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