For the creation of a supportive environment for the eighth and ninth grade Urdu speaking local students, to develop positive self-identity through studying their own histories, and cultures through the literary arts, music and visual arts. The non local students will also be encouraged to participate, in order to appreciate the culture within which the school functions.
For a grant to extend his earlier project, where students across grades in the school will work towards a folk theatre performance. While the students will learn various art forms from local artists and communities they live with, this project will bring together the entire school – the teachers, parents and school administration – to strengthen the relationship between the school experience and community lives.
For support to organise a series of arts and afterschool programmes, as extended engagements for students, between the fourth and ninth grade, who have migrated from other states. Using Yakshagana, poetry, dance, theatre and forms of visual arts, the project seeks to encourage self-directed learning while dealing with displacement.
For designing a series of workshops for the sixth grade students of the Government Higher Primary School, Gandhinagar, on appreciating the forms of poetry known as Chutuku, Kathana and Ashaya.
For the creation of a performance themed around narratives of the hair. Titled ‘A Brief History of Your Hair’, the performance draws upon personal, historical, political and gender narratives of the hair and uses humour, playfulness and fantasy to unpack questions of identity, androgyny, gendered beauty and the way these ideas relate to each other across cultures. The performance is expected to premiere in March 2016. Grant funds will pay for professional fees, performance costs and production costs.
For a film, that will depict through a musical journey, the narrative of a community called the Savita Samaj whose story has remained untold in spite of being musicians of the Nadaswaram over centuries. Using the instrument as a visual metaphor, the film will explore the socio-economic issues that are influencing the sweeping changes in the lives of the community members and the agony of their loss of a great open-air musical school.
For research on one of the kshetra kalas – the Poothan Thira, a ritual and performance based art form of the Mannan community in North Kerala. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, the researcher will create biographies of ten objects deemed significant to the art form, gleaned from conversations with ten community members. The outcome of this project will be a photo-essay and a digital online exhibition.
For examining the differences between the performances of prasangas in Yakshagana that are presented in shorter durations and those that continue through the night. The project will study how this variation in time affects pedagogy, the training of Bhagavatas and actors, and the conceptual and aesthetic concerns of the form as it is performed and viewed. The outcome of this project will be a monograph.
For the installation of a structure similar to an old-fashioned telephone booth under the Yeshwantpur flyover that will function as a story-telling machine, which recaptures a rapidly transforming Malleswaram, through recorded interviews of its residents.
For the creation of a performance inspired by the life and works of theatre legend B V Karanth that will take place at Karanth’s house in Girinagar, where he spent the last years of his life. There will also be two other smaller performances as preludes to the final one.
