THE LAMENT CONCERT

A performance about mourning, memory, and the voice of grief (2013-16)

Grover says that collective mourning is become entirely absent in society” - Rediff India News

“When language reaches its limit or silence becomes a language” - The Pioneer

A Song for the Dead” - The Indian Express

“The sleep of the grateful dead” - SwissInfo.ch

Weeping, wailing and lamenting can also be a traditional art.” - The Tribune

The post-capitalist world doesn’t want us to think about loss, says Grover” - The Indian Express

This performance began in silence — in the quiet after my grandmother’s passing, when the world around me surged forward with rituals, rules, and responsibilities. As others busied themselves with the obligations of death, I was left wondering: Where do we place our grief? Do we ever learn how to mourn?

In a culture that ritualises death but not mourning, The Lament Concert emerges as a space to ask difficult, intimate questions: What happens when grief has no language? What do we risk when we refuse to mourn? Left unexpressed, grief festers. It repeats. It colonises memory. But can mourning — when voiced, when performed — become something more than loss? Can it become knowledge, inheritance, a radical act of care?

At the heart of the work is Lakshmi, a professional mourner who has sung at the funerals of men for over twenty years. In this rare public performance, she is joined by Janagi, a young woman curious about learning the ritual. What unfolds is more than an apprenticeship — it is a dialogue between generations, between silence and voice, between a performer and the depths of her own sorrow. As Lakshmi teaches, she also begins to unearth her own stories: griefs that stretch beyond one death, one body, or one ceremony.

The Lament Concert does not offer closure.
It offers listening. It offers presence.
It invites you to sit in the unbearable —
and find that it sings.

Duration: 90 minutes
Language: Tamil (with live interpretation in multiple languages via wireless headphones)


Conceptualised by: Amitesh Grover (with Shaunak Sen & Arnika Ahldag)
Performed by: Lakshmi R, Sathanantham, Antony Janagi, Jayalakshmi, Arivazhagan
Sound Design: Hemant Sreekumar
Live Interpretation: Aprameya Manthena, Serene Hellion et al.
Documentation & Film: Shaunak Sen
Produced by: Khoj International Artists’ Association
European Premiere: Festival Belluard Bollwerk International, Switzerland, 2016