We Make Spaces Divine ft. Dey began as a quiet idea in the wake of a pandemic and grew into a riot of sound, poetry, and cinematic memory. For poet and performer Pooja Nansi, the work was a way to finally launch a collection that had been waiting in the wings. “So much of my practice is performance,” she reflects. “I’d already performed every collection I had, but this one came out during Covid. It never had a proper launch, and it still needed a stage.”

The work first took shape at the Esplanade for Foreword 2022, when Nansi performed a handful of poems alongside guitarist Isuru Wijesoma, a Singapore-based musician whose playing spans blues, Indian classical, and slide guitar traditions. “The collection is about cinema, music, and the cultural spaces we grew up with,” Nansi recalls. “Around that time I met RAAJ, and we were both drawn to bringing niche Indian cinema moments to life. It was magical to see it all collide in a room.”

The first DIY show at The Projector in 2021 became a proto-club night; poetry spilling into dance, music weaving the background into the foreground. “It was so much fun, so full of energy and so much potential. There were so many ways to develop it further and that could take it in so many directions.”

Enter Shivram Gopinath, the Chennai-born poet and two-time National Singapore Poetry Slam Champion, whose work navigates identity, community, and absurdity. His poetry collection Dey (2024) collided with Nansi’s work in a perfect confluence of cinema, language, and place. “It became a four-person riot of creation,” she says. “Our poems, Isuru’s music, RAAJ’s crate-dug beats, Shiv’s poetry, it just clicked. We pitched it to the Kalaa Utsavam team at the Esplanade, they liked it, and here we are today.”

Collaboration has been a revelation. “Isuru brings a musical mind completely different from mine. He doesn’t just put a background score under a poem; that’s boring. He thinks about subtext, musical references, adding almost another voice. It breathes new life into the poems.”

Meanwhile, RAAJ (Joshua P.) brings over 20 years of DJ experience, blending genres from Tamil and South Indian hits to Funk, Soul, and House. “Josh understands cadence, tempo, crowd work,” Nansi says. “He knows how to move from a moment of listening to a moment of dancing. Working with musical minds shifts how you see your own work, it reveals textures you didn’t know were there.”

The poems themselves take on a life beyond the page. “The text is one part of it. But with sonic layering, the poems come alive in a whole new way,” Nansi explains.

The show’s title gestures to this alchemy, and takes inspiration from visual artist Priyageetha Dia’s controversial Golden Staircase (2017), where the artist covered a public stairwell in gold, prompting widespread public discussion on whether it was art or vandalism. Nansi says, “She used gold foil because her family were goldsmiths. Gold is divine in Hindu belief. It’s about taking something communal and mundane and making it sacred. That idea resonated deeply. Spaces become spaces through the people who inhabit them. A room is just a room, until a community makes it divine.”

From that foundation, the performance flows seamlessly between spoken word and club night. “We wanted people to feel things, listen, and dance,” Nansi says. “There are intentional dance breaks. Poetry and music are in conversation.”

The collaboration also speaks to lived experience. “Isuru is Sri Lankan, Shiv and I are Indian. We’re all South Asian, but identities are complex. Growing up in Singapore, you experience a world that doesn’t fit neatly into categories. Our work celebrates that. Even if you’re not South Asian, there’s a recognition in it, moments of belonging, without apology.”

Kalaa Utsavam thus provides a spectrum for this innovation, from traditional to contemporary. “We wanted to expand what Indian art can be: sampling, remixing, DJing. Identity isn’t static. Art shouldn’t be either.”

For Nansi, live performance is indispensable. “It’s a liminal space where people show up and just be. It’s one of the few antidotes to our screen-driven, fast-moving city. It’s a space of resistance, of presence, of care.”

Even as the work evolves, Nansi embraces its unpredictability. “When we did the show in March, I thought it was done. But you don’t want to repeat, it’s about pushing the work further. Shivram’s humour, my words, Isuru’s music, RAAJ’s beats, they create a texture and variety I couldn’t have imagined alone. It holds endless possibilities.”

And when the show ends? “It ends, at least for now” she laughs. “But I hope people leave changed. That it becomes one of those nights they carry with them and talk about it for years after. A night to remember, of sound, poetry, cinema, and joy. A night where spaces become divine.”

We Make Spaces Divine ft. Dey plays from 21st to 23rd November 2025 at the Esplanade Annexe Studio. Tickets available here

Kalaa Utsavam – Indian Festival of Arts 2025 plays from 21st to 30th November 2025 at Esplanade – Theatres on the Bay. Full lineup available here