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India Foundation for the Arts
Quarterly Newsletter Edition 18
January-March 2011
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New Grants & Fellowships
Grants:IFA’s Arts Research and Documentation programme invites proposals from researchers and artists. Details.
Fellowships:IFA announces four Archival Research Fellowships of Rs 1,50,000 each.
Details
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Supporting IFA
Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai
IFA’s fundraiser, Anupam Kher in Kucch Bhi Ho Sakta Hai, ran to a full house! Connect with IFA to watch some of India’s prominent performers take to the stage to support the arts.

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Buy Now!
IFA Publications
Beyond the Proscenium
Beyond the Proscenium: Reimagining the Space for Performance
Edited by Anmol Vellani
176 pp., Rs 300, US$ 20
Buy Online!
Mail: swar@indiaifa.org

ARTCONNECT issue 8
ArtConnect
IFA biannual magazine on the Arts
Special Issue on the Performing Arts
Edited by C.K. Meena
84 pp., Rs 100, US$ 5
Subscribe to ArtConnect
Mail: swar@indiaifa.org

IFA in your city

You wouldn’t want to miss IFA in your city. Follow us on Facebook and Twitter. All events are public and free, unless otherwise stated.

The following events were held in different cities in the last three months:

 

bird_bullet BANGALORE
Family Album, Nishtha Jain
Film Screening
Family Album
Nishtha Jain
February 24, 2011

bird_bullet CHENNAI
Performance
Suraj ka Satwaan Ghoda
Rajkumar Rajak
January 18, 2011
 
Early Tamil Cinema Poster
Conference
Future of Early Tamil Cinema
Roja Muthaiah Research Library
February 17 – 18, 2011

bird_bullet KOCHI
Workshop
Curating Indian Visual Culture: Theory and Practice - Questions of Region, Gender and Sexualities
Association for Academics, Artists and Citizens for University Autonomy
February 7 – 12, 2011

bird_bullet KOLKATA
Grantee Presentation
Tambu Talkies
Shirley Abraham and Amit Madheshiya
February 1, 2011

Film Screening

Family Album
Nishtha Jain
March 21 & 23, 2011

bird_bullet MUMBAI
Cinema Satsang
Film Festival
Cinema Satsang
Katha Centre for Film Studies
February 21 – 25, 2011

bird_bullet NEW DELHI
Exhibition
Tracing a Human Trail: Metaphors of the Frontiers
Oindrilla Maity
Khoj
January 17 - 21, 2011

SHIKAAR: The Hunt

Gitanjali Dang
Khoj
January 17 - 23, 2011

Film Screening

Family Album
Nishtha Jain
March 26, 2011

Welcome to Edition 18 of the IFA Quarterly Newsletter. We hope you like the new design; and you can now share or connect with us on facebook and twitter.

We are happy to announce the publication of Beyond the Proscenium: Reimagining the Space for Performance edited by Anmol Vellani. It was underwritten by a grant from the Navajbai Ratan Tata Trust. Beyond the Proscenium explores how performing artists have conceived of space in performance, used existing theatre facilities imaginatively or created alternative spaces for performances. We hope this book will serve as a resource for the many people invested in enabling, creating, programming and negotiating performance infrastructure in India.

In Slant/Stance, Merajur Rahman Baruah, whose film Nine Months on the mobile theatre of Assam was funded by IFA, shares his experience of making documentaries. Nine Months influenced the National School of Drama, New Delhi to incorporate the study of mobile theatre into their second year syllabus.

kalikalisu
Pravin Godkhindi conducting a breakout session
Arts Education

Kali-Kalisu, now in its third year, has embarked on a series of regional conferences that brings together government school teachers from across Karnataka who have been trained under this initiative and empowers them to become autonomous agents of the Kali-Kalisu way of learning and teaching. The first conference was organised in Bidar, Karnataka from March 16 to 17, 2011 and nearly 150 teachers from the Bidar and Gulbarga constituencies of Kali-Kalisu participated in it. We thank Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan for making Kali-Kalisu possible.

Arts Research and Documentation

This programme made ten grants in 2010-11. The grants are variously supporting

  • Roja Muthiah Research Library, Chennai | a conference on the role of the archive in the construction of the history of early Tamil cinema
  • Ajinkya Shenava, Mumbai | a monograph on the Dhrupad Gurukul run by Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar
  • Rajiv Rao, New Delhi | a film on Pakistani Kathak dancer Sheema Kermani
  • Shashwati Talukdar, Dehradun | a film and photo documentation of the murals in the Guru Ram Rai Gurudwara in Dehradun
  • Sonika Soni, Udaipur | an exhibition and a series of essays on the role of family tradition in the Indian miniature painting
  • Justin McCarthy, New Delhi | a film on the Kshetrayya padam, a form of seventeenth century love poetry in the Carnatic music tradition
  • Jerry Pinto, Mumbai | a book on Clearing House, a publishing cooperative of poets that was active in the 1970s in Bombay
  • Mrityunjay Chatterjee, New Delhi | a book on the production, distribution and design aesthetics of pamphlets and little magazines produced and sold in Kolkata
  • Subendhu Dasgupta, Kolkata | a book on the history of Bengali cartoons
  • Epsita Halder, Kolkata | a travelogue on the songs performed during Muharram across various districts in West Bengal.

Curatorship

Launched in 2010, this is a pioneering programme which is supporting four nodal centres to undertake curatorial projects and initiatives across the country. We are delighted to update you on the various projects these centres have fostered and energised.

Our nodal centre for curatorial theory Association for Academics, Artists and Citizens for University Autonomy, Vadodara, organised its second workshop Curating Indian Visual Culture: Theory and Practice with a focus on Questions of Region, Gender and Sexualities from February 7 to 12, 2011 at RLV College of Music and Fine Arts, Tripunithura, Kochi. This workshop series utilises the participants’ learnings from one workshop to shape and inform the next one. It aims to map the field, identify its problems and potential, and finally conceptualise and design an academic curriculum for curatorial studies.

In August 2010, The Katha Centre for Film Studies—our nodal centre for film curatorial practices—organised a three-day workshop in Mumbai as part of its programme to train young film enthusiasts and film/art students in the practice of film curation. Five participants were chosen from this workshop to curate an eclectic five-day film festival titled Cinema Satsang at the Alliance Française Auditorium in Mumbai from February 21 to 25, 2011. TimeOut Mumbai carried a comprehensive preview of the festival here.

gitanjali dang
Installation - 'Elegantly Wasted' by Aastha Chauhan in SHIKAAR: The Hunt
Image Courtesy: Khoj International Artists Association

Our nodal centre for visual art curatorial practice KHOJ, New Delhi presented curated exhibitions by emerging curators Gitanjali Dang and Oindrilla Maity—the first participants of its two-month Curatorial Residency. Gitanjali Dang curated SHIKAAR: The Hunt at Select City Walk, Saket, Delhi from January 16 to 22, 2011. It was conceptualised as a treasure hunt of art works scattered across the mall, which visitors were invited to discover with clue maps to guide them. You can read The Hindu preview here. Oindrilla Maity’s TRACING A HUMAN TRAIL: Metaphors of the Frontiers focused on a community that first migrated to the outskirts of Kolkata, surviving the riots in Bangladesh, and later to Delhi. It was exhibited at KHOJ studios and Select Citywalk, Saket, New Delhi from January 17 to 22, 2011. You can read Oindrilla Maity’s reflections on the role of artists in reinforcing public memory here.

The Centre for Culture Media and Governance, Jamia Millia Islamia University, Delhi is our nodal centre for Curatorial/Exhibition Policy Research & Advocacy. On January 20, 2011, with the additional support of Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council, it organised a symposium titled Cultural Policy & Curatorship: Perspectives from Switzerland. Marianne Burki, Head of Visual Arts, Swiss Arts Council, Pro Helvetia, Switzerland spoke on Exhibition Practices in relation to Cultural Policy while Mirjam Varadinis, Curator, Kunsthaus Zurich spoke on Curatorship and Multiculturalism. Both the curators emphasised the need for arts councils and other institutional support to create a healthy art environment.

Extending Arts Practice

Three grants have been made under this programme. We are supporting Goa Center for Alternative Photography (Goa-CAP) to run a first of its kind residency for photographers interested in alternative forms of image creation and processing. You can follow the residency on the ALTLab blog. Jatin Vidyarthi, a sound artist from Bangalore, has received a grant to create a contemporary soundtrack for an Indian film from the silent era. We are also funding M V Bhaskar from Chennai to replicate the seventeenth century Ramayana murals at the Chengam Venugopala Parthasarathy temple, Tiruvannamalai, Tamil Nadu, on other media, exploring alternative forms of mural conservation, reconstruction and restoration.

aasakta kalamanch
A scene from Aasakta Kalamanch’s Tichee 17 Prakarne
New Performance

Pune-based Aasakta Kalamanch’s play Tichee 17 Prakarne, which was developed with support from IFA, won three Mahindra Excellence in Theatre Awards last month—Best Director (Alok Rajwade, Nipun Dharmadhikari, Sarang Sathaye & Varun Narvekar), Best Lighting Director (Pradeep Vaidya) and Best Ensemble (Tichee 17 Prakarne).

Two new grants have been made under this programme. Kathak dancer, Ashavari Majumdar from Kolkata is being supported to create a new performance piece on Surpanakha for intimate spaces. Suresh Acharya from Bikaner has received funding to undertake pre-production work towards creating a performance text focusing on Karna from the Mahabharata, using Ramdhari Singh Dinkar’s poem Rashmirathi and the form of rammat.

Special Grants

Beneficiaries of a special grant—the Mir musicians of Rajasthan—collaborated with Rajkumar Rajak, an IFA New Performance grantee, to create an original music score for Rajak’s play Suraj ka Satwaan Ghoda. They travelled with the play to Delhi, Allahabad and Chennai.
baba farid
The musicians were also invited to perform at Sufi Sutra, the International Sufi Music Festival in Kolkata in February 2011. They also came to Bangalore to perform exclusively for the Friends of IFA. Do read about the event below.

Rang Farid—a special CD of live performances recorded at the Baba Farid Rang Mir Sammelan in Mirgarh, Bikaner in October 2010—is available for Rs 100. All proceeds will go to the Mir community fund. For queries and purchase: sumana@indiaifa.org

Friends of IFA

Friends of IFA organised its first Bring a Friend evening on February 18, 2011 in Bangalore. We requested each of our Friends to bring one or more friends who might want to support IFA and become part of a growing group of people who directly contribute to the arts. The Mir musicians presented an exclusive performance of the Sufiyana Kalam at the Alliance Française. Our Friend of IFA community and Donor Patron Circle are the heart and imagination of our work in fundraising. We thank our Friends and Donors for their enthusiasm and support.

Slant / Stance
Merajur Rahman Baruah
Merajur Rahman Baruah, based in Delhi, has made several documentary films. His film Shifting Prophecy was awarded the Rajat Kamal at the 55th National Awards in the ‘Best Film on Social Issue’ category. IFA supported him to make Nine Months, a documentary film on the mobile theatres of Assam, which won the 2nd Prize at the Jeevika Asia Livelihood Documentary Film Festival, 2010. He shares his experience of filmmaking with IFA.

IFA: In an interview with The Hindu, you said: Everyone is willing to pour her heart out until the camera is switched on. Then, it is a different story!. This makes us curious about your role as an interviewer: Can you take us back to how you began talking to people and getting their stories; and share with us how you have changed as an interviewer with each film you have made?

Merajur Rahman Baruah (MRB): Well, you are right. It has happened on many occasions. As I start investigating a subject or an issue, I would approach people associated with it. During this research and recce period, they would be very open and express themselves without much inhibition. But during the shooting phase, when the camera is switched on, at times, they choose to be selective with their vocabulary. I respect their concern and never push them to speak before the camera if they suddenly feel uncomfortable. I instead talk to them again, discuss issues they are comfortable with and once they are at ease, I ask for permission to switch on the camera. If the person agrees, my interview happens. If not, I postpone the shooting for another time when my interviewee would be ready to have an in-depth conversation. Yes, there are various reasons that make the interviewee clam up: first, the camera itself often becomes obtrusive, then the situation or the milieu may go completely against the interview or the timing can be really unfortunate. Quite often the choice of time is crucial—filmmakers working with limited budgets endeavour to schedule the shoot in such a way that they can maximise their shooting time. So what could happen is that the person we would want to speak to may have another prior engagement and would like to rush, but sometimes we push her/him to suit our needs and budgets, thereby leading to a conflict of interests. But if we are a little sensitive and empathise with the people we are trying to explore, then we can avoid compromising the quality of the interviews that we propose to translate into a cinematic expression or reality.

IFA: You have made documentaries and television programs on a number of issues. This must have included entering a community (secular, religious, professional, artistic etc) as an outsider - have you ever encountered distrust or even exceptionally surprising faith? How does such an encounter shape the ethics of your film-making?

MRB: Well, as documentary filmmakers, we often encounter such situations during the research phase. While embarking on in-depth research work, we try to meet as many people to explore different perspectives and also assess their stake. In such situations, until we have established a rapport with the people and earn their fullest trust, people do get sceptical about the intention and even the credibility of the filmmaker. Well, I would like share my experience while making my film Nine Months. For my research, I was travelling across the state of Assam—visiting many small and big theatre companies, and watching them rehearse. They would all welcome me, but when I told them about the need for shooting their rehearsals, a few theatre groups became extremely apprehensive about my intention—that I may misappropriate the footage or show it to other theatre companies about the new things and techniques they are doing before the release of their production, which may lose its innovative appeal. So I had to try hard to convince them with utmost sincerity. But once they understood my intention and trusted me, most of the theatre companies were more than happy to allow me to shoot.

I would like to share another experience. While shooting, I discovered that one of the theatre groups had a six year old girl acting in their productions. I was quite keen to have her as one of the characters in my narrative—to unfold the mobile theatre from a holistic perspective. Hence, I wanted to shoot her live—like the way she lived and travelled with the other 120 senior members of the troupe for the duration of nine months, but the producer was a little apprehensive about this. He had no problem or reservation about my shooting other members or travelling with the group, which I did. I also filmed the plays the little girl was acting in, but somehow I no longer felt it was right to shoot the girl live, so I eventually dropped her as a character from the film. She is seen in the film in bits and pieces. We as filmmakers can’t be rigid and force our desired narrative on our potential subjects.

IFA:Nine Months, which you created with an IFA grant, has achieved a lot. Can you please share with us its journey and the number of exciting developments it has brought about?

MRB: I am really happy that my film Nine Months has contributed to the medium, i.e. the mobile theatre itself. I would like to share some anecdotes. I have done extensive research on the subject, and it has been a pioneering study. It has been 48 years since the inception of mobile theatre but very few studies have focused on this medium. Outside the state of Assam, not many people have been exposed to this particular form of theatre. When I did the research, even the people engaged with the mobile theatre felt the importance of an in-depth research and realised the need to start initiating a method to archive their plays, props, scripts etc. because till then the life of a play used to be for one theatre season only. The following year, nothing would be in store—no reference, nothing and most surprisingly the playscript itself would no longer exist. The scriptwriter would also have no memory of it! However, in a positive turn of events, the National School of Drama (NSD), New Delhi invited the biggest mobile theatre company in Assam called Kohinoor Theatre to Delhi in April 2010. They performed for five days. During this five-day festival of the mobile theatre, NSD also wanted to showcase its history using old posters, props and so on but they had difficulties finding the required materials. They just barely managed and also had to commission someone to film the mobile theatre before the exhibition. The performance went well with a lot of appreciation and extensive coverage on national media. However the biggest achievement of the mobile theatre as a genre is that the NSD has incorporated the study of mobile theatre into its second year syllabus. And recently, a group of second year students were sent to Assam to get a hands-on experience of the medium. The students got the training of dual stage performance which is unique to mobile theatre, and now they are rehearsing for one of the popular plays called the Titanic. It is an adaptation of the Hollywood blockbuster of the same title. After the training and rehearsal period, the second year students will perform the play in its pure form across the country.

Also, Nine Months is doing reasonably well in terms of reaching a wider audience. It’s going to different festivals and recently won the second best film award at the Jeevika-Asia Livelihood Documentary Film Festival, Delhi, 2010. NDTV 24x7 has also requested for the film to be telecast on their channel. So we have got into a two-year agreement with NDTV whereby they will telecast the film four times. After the release of Nine Months, I have been getting calls and emails from different organisations and media persons enquiring about mobile theatres. I have also received a call from the National Centre for the Performing Art, Mumbai. They called to enquire about how to get a mobile theatre company to perform in Mumbai. Recently, the mobile theatre groups have collectively released their first book on the history of mobile theatre. So I feel that my film has in some way given them the impetus to reach national and international audiences.

IFA: What is the travelling experience of a documentary film-maker like you? Does the fact that you are going to turn a particular travel into something later on change your experience of a place and its people?

MRB: While making a film we often encounter incidents or hear stories that unfold in a completely different arena, perhaps independent of the subject under study. It may draw us to the core of our subject and help us unfold the realities in a more exciting way. But my personal experience is that we often fail to tell the stories that have to be told because of the many handicaps we face as independent documentary filmmaker … that is another story. But coming back to your question about changing my perception about a place and its people, well, it does not really happen because as a matter of principle and training, I don’t visit any place with a preconceived notion. I essentially let my imagination and understanding evolve with every successive visit to the place.

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