Connecting Offline: Bop or Flop?
If you are a gen-z reading this, then I think you must’ve understood the title and you can skip the next few lines. But if you are a boomer, millennial or anything else then here’s a small explanation for you: bop means something that is cool, trendy or collectively liked and well, flop means something that is not cool, not trendy and is collectively disliked. Now that we have this set out, let’s dig into it.
Connecting offline, is it a bop or a flop?
I think that depends on what you define ‘connecting’ as and with whom. If it is just connecting on a call for some lousy work, then surely we don’t mind showing our online personality. After all, we’ve been so used to the online lifestyle that it is the “new normal”. Sometimes, it is a better option than physically socialising; you save time, effort, money, and your ‘social battery’. Plus, you’re in luck if you’re an introvert. For some people, it was a total dream come true to be having to work from home. It was a new discovery; to be able to experience anything and everything from the comfort of your home. Online lectures, seminars, courses, even performances, shows, open mic sessions, everything was brought to you on a screen. Here’s a real-time experience: one of my friends attended an online performance of a theatre production. They loved it when they saw it online but hated it when the same show was performed offline. Online meet ups were a new way of socialising and quite the unconventional platform to showcase your art and creativity until it started becoming redundant.
But, there are so many instances where it’s better to connect offline. The post-covid era is a completely new and different one. We are navigating the world through a new lens and it has changed many perspectives. In this highly digitised and seemingly ‘forever online’ world, are we really connecting with each other, and with our own self? During the two years of covid, everything was online, right from your family members, your work meetings, friends, and even your dates. Art and creativity had to look for and adapt to online platforms. A majority of artists all over the world had no option but to showcase their art through the internet; starting with arranging online concerts, shows, exhibitions, and even theatre performances.
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Slowly and steadily, the art community went digital. However, it was evident that the experiences of having meaningful conversations with like-minded people were getting lost. The exchange of ideas that takes place when people are a part of a creative community is a vital aspect of learning. When all you could see were black squares on a screen, there was no way of knowing how much of the ‘learning’ aspect was getting achieved. In this situation ‘connecting offline’ was something many artists absolutely yearned for.
Many of us were missing the physical space to perform or connect with the audience and other fellow artists. You can truly ‘connect’ with art by experiencing it in its real, raw form. Art, as a form of expression, is much better when experienced and practised in a group; or in better words, a community.
Being among ‘your people’ and doing what you love is also a true form of expression. Breathing, talking, creating in a room full of artists, essentially, ‘your people’ goes a long way in developing the right bonds. Upon having a conversation with many artists around us and understanding the difficulties that we have been collectively facing, we realised that connecting offline is a need for artists, and their audiences, and is evidently a bop.
We felt the need to create a safe space for expression, learning and enhancing communities of artists. Our space is called ‘The Base’. It is a community centre that focuses on aspects like learning, bringing like-minded people together and developing a performance-oriented space. The Base is a space designed by artists, for artists. It has a fully equipped, malleable space for theatre, dance, music and more. Along with state-of-the-art sound and light equipment for performances of all kinds, film shoots, professional photography assignments and many more. It is the ideal space for practice sessions and can facilitate and enhance the experience of learning, and performative art — a space dedicated to arts and culture.
Written by Ira Marathe
