Joshua Remsanga Sailo

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA under Explorations will attempt to reconstruct Mizo folktales through movement arts that creates a new ‘folk dance’ in collaboration with community members as a way of recovering memories that were lost after the coming of Christianity to the region in the 20th century. Joshua Remsanga Sailo is the Coordinator for this project. 

Joshua Remsanga Sailo is a dancer-choreographer-illustrator who divides his time between Bangalore and Aizwal. He was trained in the Alexander Technique Teacher Training under the tutelage of Robin and Beatrice Simmons in 2021. Joshua did his MA in Dance from the Institute of the Arts in Barcelona in 2018. He was the recipient of Kathryn Ash Scholarship Award in 2013 and 2015, at the School of Toronto Dance Theatre. Given his experience, he is best placed to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.

This project titled Pial Râl, is about constructing a new ‘folk dance’, as a community exercise to remember Mizo folktales and myths, that have been gradually forgotten, ever since the massive conversion enforced by the coming of Christianity to Mizoram in the 20th century. Pial Râl means a place where the souls of the dead aspire to travel to. The Project Coordinator will work very closely with six collaborators - his grandmother, mother, aunts and cousins - none of whom are dancers - to connect their body movements to (re)constructed folktales. Once this connection is made in the safe space of the family, it will be taken forward into the wider community, through open workshops and curated happenings culminating in community dining. The project will explore the possibility of connecting movement to loss and grief through this process. The Project Coordinator will also invite a professional musician and set designer to enhance the experience of movement arts.  

The outcome of the project will be the new folk dance, along with open movement workshops, curated happenings and community dining. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be audio-visual documentation of the artistic process, along with written/ illustrated notes on the exploration and public events. 

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Practice programme in the manner in which it attempts to collectively reconstruct forgotten cultural pasts through active involvement of community members in the practice of movement arts. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.

This project is made possible with support from Sony Pictures Entertainment Fund.