Shilpa – The Indian Singer App

Shilpa – The Indian Singer App is the European edition of C sharp C blunt, a performance about the paradoxical professional lives of Indian female performers in the Indian entertainment industry. In this production, MD Pallavi and Sophia Stepf focus on the latest European edition of Shilpa, a “singer app” for smartphones. Shilpa is user-friendly and charming. Shilpa is the first singer app in a theatre. She operates live and interactively.

Please enter one line of text.
Please hum a melody.
Please choose sexyness, on a scale of 1-10.
A music theatre performance, a living app, a search for amusing feminism, and a satirical commentary on the economy of the entertainment industry.

ZKB Patronage Prize at the Zürcher Theater Spektakel 2014, Winner of the Secondo Festival Switzerland 2014 

A Flinntheater production

Created by MD Pallavi (performance and text), Sophia Stepf (direction and text), Swar Thounaojam, Rituparna Bhattacharya, Irawati Karnik (text collaboration), Nikhil Nagaraj and Andi Otto (live sound), Lisa Stepf (artistic collaboration), Marie Winnie Wilka (assistant director), ehrliche arbeit – freies Kulturbüro (production management)

Supported by the Cultural Office of the City of Kassel, Hessian Ministry of Art and Science, Gerhard-Fieseler-Foundation, Fonds Darstellende Künste, WELL Being Stiftung, Sparda Bank Hessen, Goethe-Institut / Max Mueller Bhavan Bangalore
 

Events

Sophiensæle Berlin: September 6 (opening) - 8, 2013 / Kulturhaus Dock 4 Kassel: September 12 - 15, 2013 / Secondo Festival, Theater Tuchlaube Aarau: March 15, 2014 / Zürcher Theater Spektakel: August 22 – 24, 2014 / Theater Tuchlaube Aarau: April 28, 29 & May 1, 2014 / LICHTHOF Theater Hamburg (India Week): November 7 & 8, 2015 / Künstlerhaus Mousonturm Frankfurt (Made in Hessen. 100%): November 13, 2015 / Pavillon Hannover: November 14, 2015 / Performing Arts Festival Berlin @ Sophiensæle Berlin: June 13 - 18, 2017

Press

Deutschlandfunk Kultur heute 7.9. (4 min)

Deutschlandfunk „Indisches Smartphone App Theater“ 9.9. (5 Min)

Portrait MD Pallavi auf rbbKultur (6 Min)

What an actress, what a singer! What a humourous, witty, politically-charged and gloriously interpreted One-Woman-Show.

Tages-Anzeiger

MD Pallavi’s stamina in this virtuosic one-woman-show captures an audience with rare ease. The audience is challenged to reconsider their role as a passive consumer of the disturbing power relationships represented in the media and everyday life. The young director Sophia Stepf makes a layered and complex performance, with an intelligent and economical use of the theatrical apparatus. With Flinntheater she works with sensitivity towards context, in terms of how the work is made and how it is presented. «Shilpa- The Indian Singer App» has a dynamic rhythm, has a vibrant energy and becomes a poignant theatrical statement.'


Jury Statement of the ZKB Patronage Prize at Zürcher Theater Spektakel, August 2014

Pallavi is both an outstanding singer and a brilliant actress with a huge range of expressions in her armory, she takes us through the characters with playful ease. Sophia Stepf directs this razor sharp, sad, hilarious and very intelligent performance. She weaves metaphors and symbols of seemingly disparate worlds and ideas to create an inner logic for the play describing how pop culture and religion define the lives of women in a globalized world. The play retains a unique sense of humor which makes it a must watch for German audiences.

Deutsche Welle