Satish KC

Satish K C, a member of the community that performs the folk performance form of Puruvantike and a lecturer in Kannada at the Government High School (PUC Section), Malur, Tirthahalli Taluk, Shivamogga District is also a playwright and produces theatre performances.

Satish will engage his students in a process of exploring a text from the school syllabus by interpreting it through local art forms, particularly the Puruvantike, and consider multiple possibilities of creating performance pieces. Rather than using the arts in a transactional mode as a handmaiden to reinforce the authority of the text, Satish will attempt to engage the poly-vocal rendition of Vadapu of the Puruvantike folk form to open out the text to multiple contexts and meanings. This swap between text and performance will facilitate a process of mutual redefinition, while allowing students to explore learning through a creative process. Being an artist himself, he will also encourage children to understand and experience the form from different perspectives. Starting from reading the texts, understanding the lyrics, designing the vibrant costumes and directing the actors to managing the audience – every aspect of the performance form will be part of the children’s learnings. The project also seeks to concurrently bring different voices of marginalised vachanakaras and social reformers through workshops by traditional practitioners and scholars.

The grant outcome will be a public stage performance at the end of the project. The resulting performance piece will be presented in two or three school venues. The deliverables of the grant would include photographs from the workshops and performance and a ten to twelve minute video documentation.

This grant was made possible with support from Citi India.