India Foundation for the Arts - Mysuru

Vinod Kumar S Hiremath

admin — Fri, 15 Feb 2019 08:11:30 +0000

This Grant was amicably cancelled based on reasons mutually agreed upon by the Grantee and IFA due to unavoidable circumstances.

Vinod Kumar S Hiremath, is a Rangayana alumnus and is an active theatre practitioner from Koppala. He has been conducting several theatre workshops for children across Karnataka. He also is a Bachelor of Agriculture. Through this grant project, he will work with eighth-grade students of the Government High School near Hommaragalli in Mysuru district to explore the various vegetables and fruits of South America that have become part of the Indian cuisine.

Today, we think of tomatoes as an Italian staple, potatoes as quintessentially Irish or northern European, and peanuts as native to Africa. But Native American farmers cultivated and developed these foods over hundreds of generations, long before Europeans exported them throughout the world. Namma Hotteyalli Dakshina America, (South America in our Stomach) by the Kannada writer B G L Swamy is a book that explores the various stories of these indigenous food items and sparks our curiosity by describing edible crops introduced from tropical South America to India. This book is a treasure trove of detailed descriptions, ecology and uses, conservation, botanical folklore and myths, and allusions to plants in Sanskrit, Kannada and Tamil literature – all narrated in his typical humorous style. Generations of students have been inspired by his vast knowledge of plants in their natural habitats, and the scientific, cultural and historical lores associated with them.

Vinod’s project focuses on theatrically adapting stories from Namma Hotteyalli Dakshina America. This will also make students connect the food they eat at home to the work they do in classrooms. Students will also be mentored in preparing a series of theatrical scripts based on examples from this book in relation to their science curriculum.

The outcome of this project will be a series of performances. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be still and video documentation of the entire project.

This grant was made possible with support from Citi India and Infosys Foundation.

One year and six months

2018-2019

2019

Arts Education

Karnataka

Mysuru

Syed Sadiq S (Riyaz Sihimoge)

admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 10:40:52 +0000

Syed Sadiq S is a trained graduate from Ninasam and an active theatre practitioner from Mysuru. Syed has another Diploma in Theatre from Rangayana as well. He has served as an artist and light designer with theatre groups at Shivamogga and Mysore. He has also worked as a drama teacher in Kautilya Vidyalaya in Mysore. For many years Syed has been conducting theatre workshops for children.

In this project, Syed wants the eighth grade students of the Government Higher Primary School, Kuvempunagar, Mysore, to explore the western theatre form, playback theatre. Playback theatre is an interactive form of improvisational theatre in which audience members narrate stories from their lives and watch them enacted on the spot. Playback theatre comprises of a conductor, musicians and actors. It is an immediate theatre form that enables dialogues with the audience. Syed believes, this form provides a platform for students to express their emotions and builds confidence in them. He has planned to develop this form in four phases by involving students, teachers, parents and community members in this exercise. In this process, text from the school syllabus will also be explored and interpreted by students. He has planned to invite resource persons to conduct series of workshop on playback theatre.

The outcome of this grant will be a series of performances by students in the nearby government schools in Padavarahalli village. The deliverables of the grant would include photographs and a video documentation.

This grant is made possible with support from Citi India.

One year and six months

2018-2019

2018

Arts Education

Karnataka

Mysuru

Prashanth Kumar

admin — Wed, 26 Sep 2018 10:37:30 +0000

Prashanth Kumar is a theatre artist, specialising in intimate theatre, from Mysore. He has been conducting several workshops for children during summer breaks. He has also actively participated as an actor and director in the productions of Rangayana, in Mysuru. He is specialised in developing plays on intimate theatre style with set and lighting.

In this project, Prashanth intends to introduce eight grade students of the Government High School (PUC section) at Akkihebbalu village in Mandya district to the concept of intimate theatre. Intimate theatre is played facing one side of an acting area for the audience much like proscenium, but the wings and the border area of the stage are not used - bringing the audience really close to the performers. He will encourage students to develop Roopantara - metamorphic stories using this theatre style. He has selected four stories from their textbooks for this purpose, of which one story will be performed as a theatre play by the students. These stories are written by famous authors and poets like Nemichandra, A K Ramanujan, Bagalodi Devaraya and Kanakadasa.

Prashanth believes that this exercise will increase self-confidence, strengthen collaborative skills, improve learning, and expand the world view of the students. He also feels that learning intimate theatre will help students to be life-long learners. He will invite several resource people from theatre to run this series of workshops for the students.

The outcome of this grant will be a performance by students in the presence of teachers and community members. The deliverables of the grant would include photographs and video documentation.

This grant is made possible with support from Citi India.

One year and six months

2018-2019

2018

Arts Education

Karnataka

Mysuru

Praveen

admin — Mon, 02 Apr 2018 10:48:04 +0000

Praveen is a theatre artist based out of Mysore. His training at Rangayana, Mysuru has opened new ways for him to engage in the field of Theatre-in-Education. He also has two years of teaching experience in the same institution. He has been conducting several theatre workshops for children during summer and Dasara holidays. For this project, he has chosen to work with the public library, involving eighth grade students of Government Higher Primary School, Kukkarahalli, Mysuru, Mysuru district.

All text books in school, including language text books, have a ‘further reference’ section as an activity at the end of each lesson. But schools fail to explore this given the lack of both time and interest. Praveen’s project aims to encourage students to visit the library to access more stories, novels, plays and poetry of those writers mentioned in these ‘further reference’ sections. He stresses that this activity is important for a student to get a complete understanding of the lessons and develops a habit of reading, which further enables her to explore learning as a creative process.

Keeping this context in mind, Praveen will first take the students through a workshop on how a library functions, its policies and its coding process; he will then inspire students to embrace a practice of using libraries regularly. Subsequently, he will conduct theatre workshops and create a series of performances based on their explorations in the library.

This series of performances will be the outcome of the project. The Grantee’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be audio-visual documentation of the workshops, images, and a ten to twelve minute video document of the entire project.

This grant is made possible with support from Citi India.

One year

2017-2018

2018

Arts Education

Karnataka

Mysuru

Subbulakshmi S

admin — Mon, 21 Mar 2016 06:44:26 +0000

S Subbulakshmi is a Drawing Teacher at the Government Higher Primary School, Thonachikoppal, Mysuru. She has a Masters in History and in Fine Arts from Hampi University. With a rich experience in teaching for the past 15 years she has persistently involved herself in many co-curricular activities like storytelling, dance and science exhibition models making for primary and higher primary school students. She is also adept in toy making and working with a variety of materials and designs. Her experience in participating in the arts integrated master resource training programme conducted by IFA this year, has triggered this current project.

She believes that knowledge formulations happen when educators and learners share in a common journey, which creates connections that build relationships. Educators and learners begin to understand how life experiences impact personal learning experiences. Her project ‘Talk Story’ is an indigenous pedagogical teaching strategy that encourages learners to develop confidence to incorporate life experiences within the classroom in their curricula content through use of storytelling though gestures, movements, puppets and props. It encourages students to grasp both the meanings and applications of the content that they are studying and build a cumulative analysis of collective thought through a consensual process. The idea of ‘Talk Story’ can compliment or be an alternative to the chalk and talk form of pedagogical process.

The outcome of this project will be a series of presentations of such stories by students in a festival organised by the school for the community. The deliverables of the project to IFA will be images and audio- video documentation of the programmes.

This grant was made possible with support from Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore and Citi India.

over ten months

2015-2016

2015

Arts Education

Karnataka

Mysuru