'A chaos of colour': new play made for one of Manchester's last sari shops

When Alankar House of Sarees first opened on what is now Manchester’s Curry Mile in 1977, its only neighbours were a grocer’s and the Indian-Pakistani restaurant Sanam. As the years went by the shop was joined by scores of rivals, competing for custom from the area’s growing south Asian community. Forty years later, as many young British Asians are turning away from the sari as an everyday form of dress, the business is one of the area’s few surviving traditional sari shops.

Sitting in the store, surrounded by piles of intricately embroidered fabrics, 34-year-old Poonam Modha says she had never planned to dedicate her life to the family business. She is the granddaughter of Gokuldas Modha, who founded the shop after arriving in Britain from Tanzania. “When I was growing up my mum and dad used to bring me to work during the holidays when all I wanted to do was play,” she says. “But as I grew up and got into my late teens I fell in love with the clothes.”

The Manchester shop, and the family’s store in Leicester, provide the settings for Handlooms, a new play by writer Rani Moorthy and her company Rasa Theatre, made in collaboration with Manchester’s Contact theatre. Handlooms seeks to explore the changing experiences of British south Asian communities, telling the story of a mother and son who disagree about how to deal with a crisis in their sari business.

Audiences in Manchester and Leicester will watch the performances in the shops themselves. Much of the performance will take place on the traditional raised, cushioned platform that shop workers stand on to demonstrate the fabrics to their mostly female customers, who sit drinking masala tea. Audience members will be given headphones so they can listen to interactions taking place out of sight, and hear a specially compiled score.

Source: theguardian