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The Monk & The Warrior (formerly The Monk & Alexander) is a new cross-cultural epic written by award winning playwright, Mahesh Dattani (India), conceived & directed by Jonathan Taikina Taylor of The SuperGeographics (USA), and with music composition by Eero Hämeenniemi (Finland). Blending key voices from India, Finland, and The US, it examines assumed hierarchies between west and eastern cultures as a great conqueror, Alexander the Great, and a Bodhisattva monk striving for nothingness collide in an episodic exploration of queerness and power. With a fierce mix of curiosity and desire, they navigate a magnificent tapestry of stories that redefine what it means to accept and understand one another. By hypothesizing queerness and colonization as opposites the play reimagines this meeting of India with colonial power through curiosity, plurality, and equality. Their ensuing relationship is uniquely queer, reframing familiar folk tales and mythologies through a new perspective and asking, ‘Can queerness offer an antidote to oppressive political power?’ This type of reframed storytelling is a vital building block in the ongoing construction of our global interrelationships which uplift diversity and a multiplicity of culture.
We have built the play through a series of cross-cultural collaborative workshops between 2020 and 2025. One artist creates something within their practice, they then hand it off to another to be transformed within theirs. The objects of the play multiply through their circulation between artists, across time, space and culture, colliding in the rehearsal room to make something completely unique. In this larger political moment, non-hierarchical methodologies and agreements as ways of making art and, by extension, of building community are incredibly important to research and create in cross-cultural context. This play, process, and work group seeks to unravel these inherited hierarchies based on old systems and hard power to offer new paths towards cross-cultural collaboration.
The Monk & The Warrior
Creative Team
Mahesh Dattani
Playwright | Mumbai, India
Mahesh Dattani is a playwright and stage director based out of Mumbai. Penguin Randomhouse, India, published his plays in three volumes. In 1998, he received the Sahitya Akademi Award, one of the highest literary awards in India. His film credits as writer-director include Mango Souffle (2000), awarded the best motion picture at the Barcelona Gay and Lesbian Film Festival and toured the UK as part of the London Gay and Lesbian Festival. His works are produced in all major cities of India and elsewhere.
Jonathan Taikina Taylor
Director | Brooklyn, USA
Jonathan Taikina Taylor is a director, teacher, and movement artist split between Mexico City and Brooklyn. He is Co-Founder and Artistic Director of The SuperGeographics Ensemble Theatre. Under his direction The SuperGeographics work has been seen across The US and in Sweden, Chile, and India.
Eero Hämeenniemi
Composer | Helsinki, Finland
He was composer in residence with the Mikkeli Orchestra 1997-99 and Tapiola Sinfonietta 2000-2002. Chairman of the Finland-India Society 1991-93, artistic director of the Helsinki Biennale contemporary music festival in 1997. He has performed and recorded as an improvising pianist with his NADA-ensemble, touring Mexico, The U.S., India and many European countries. He was columnist for the largest newspaper in Finland, Helsingin Sanomat 1999-2006.
QTP, India
Local Producer | Mumbai, India
QTP India, founded in 1999 by Quasar Thakore Padamsee, Arghya Lahiri, Toral Shah, Vivek Rao, Nadir Khan, and Christopher Samuel, is a Mumbai-based theatre and arts management company dedicated to producing socially conscious, experimental, and artistically ambitious theatre. Over the years, QTP has produced both home-grown and international plays, organized live performances, and collaborated on festivals such as Tata Literature Live!, while nurturing youth theatre through its large-scale initiative Thespo. The company aims to make theatre accessible and to provoke thought by telling compelling stories that reflect “bitter truths” and social issues.
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