Inside a Delhi studio where two storytellers have spent the past decade building a creative utopia for performers in a system that rarely supports them.

Performance in India has never stayed on a stage. It spills out of temples and wedding processions, classical dance recitals and ritual theatre into everyday life. Bollywood, headquartered in Mumbai, industrialised the spectacle, but lately many people from the industry have stepped outside the film set in search of something more immediate.

Founded by former filmmaker Nayantara Kotian and actor-writer Prashant Prakash in 2015, Crow has grown into a performance studio powered by a stubbornly independent creative community of actors, writers, set designers, costume designers, choreographers, filmmakers, musicians and technicians, many balancing day jobs while returning here to build strange worlds. “This is our self-created utopia. And our community is everything,” Nayantara says. “They make ridiculous, heroic things possible.”