For training teachers in using the visual arts to enhance the quality of elementary education in several districts of Karnataka. This project will upscale the Art-in-Education component of the earlier District Quality Education Programme in Chamrajnagar district and simultaneously extend it to select blocks in several other districts.
For preparatory research and documentation towards a dance production titled Dance and the City. Four dancers will share their personal experiences of Bangalore with one another, record interviews with other city residents, and undertake photo and video documentation. This material will be used to generate narratives and movement ideas that will form the basis of the proposed production.
For research into the oral narrative tradition of Manteswamy, a sixteenth century saint of Karnataka, and its performance by the Neelagaras, the traditional singers of the Manteswamy epic. The study will excavate the historical origins of the tradition, scrutinise its representation as a Dalit tradition, and examine its contemporary performance contexts.
For a series of intensive short-term culture workshops for undergraduate students and other youngsters of the same age group. The objective is to fill a serious vacuum in the formal general education system, which lacks a mechanism to help youngsters appreciate the most significant art works and aesthetic traditions in their immediate environment and open their minds to the rich world of intellectual inquiry.
For the development of a theatre production titled The Wedding Party which simulates an urban middle-class wedding in order to explore issues of gender, class and sexuality. The audience will be ‘invitees’ to the wedding, positioned to both observe and participate in the proceedings. The ‘fourth wall’ of theatre will be broken by ‘performing’ the play in a non-theatre space like a marriage hall, complete with all the accoutrements of a typical urban wedding.
For research and field work to compile Sindhi oral narratives in the border region of western Rajasthan and Kutch. In particular, the various forms of the premakhyans (love narratives), which are the most popular of the various Sindhi oral narratives, will be contextualised and investigated. The research will lead to a series of articles or a short monograph.
For a series of intensive and rigorous theatre and puppetry workshops with students, teacher trainees and teachers, with a view to reinforcing and institutionalising theatre arts pedagogy in primary and collegiate education in the Dharwad area.
For supporting a colloquium on ‘Accessing Arts Education: Possibilities and Challenges’. The colloquium will promote dialogue on national-level policy on arts education as articulated by the National Council for Educational Research and Training, debate curricular possibilities and limitations, highlight existing arts education initiatives and reflect on the experience gathered on the ground.
For the development of Chronotopia, a dance production inspired by the Tamil epic Silappatikaram, which will explore our struggle to make sense of the rapid changes that often defy conventional notions of space and chronology. Drawing upon the tenets of classical Tamil poetry, the production will develop a non-linear dramaturgy that establishes a connection between the landscape and the emotional and spiritual life of the characters, creating a geography of mind and imagination.
For research into the origin and development of science pedagogy in Bengali. Covering popular science articles in Bengali, ‘science jokes’ heard on college campuses, topics selected for doctoral dissertations and the presence of Russian textbooks in syllabi, the study will result in the creation of three or four artist’s books, a series of short text-and-image narratives, and a website.
