Mounesh Vishwakarma K
Grant Period: One year and four months
Mounesh Vishwakarma K has been a stage performer and a press reporter for 17 years and has acted in street plays and proscenium performances in various schools both in Puttur and Bantwala taluks of Dakshina Kannada district. He has also directed many plays in schools and colleges for their annual day celebrations. He is a recipient of a scholarship for young artists from the central government.
His project aims to initiate a student-led arts newsletter centred on performing arts. It will be a creative space for students to articulate their responses to various plays and performances that they see in Dakshina Kannada district. With the grant he will work with 30 students from the Government Model Higher Primary School, Kalladka village, Dakshina Kannada district and publish six such bi-monthly newsletters.
Students will take part in a series of workshops that will enable them to watch, understand, and analyse various aspects of theatre and other performing arts. They will also read different plays to engage with the layered meanings in them and develop critical understanding of the script. With a weekly engagement through the sixteen-month grant period, Mounesh will also encourage students to enhance other skills such as verbal, non-verbal and journalistic communication, working with peers, making decisions and managing responsibilities. Mounesh will involve the teachers of the school and the community in all his activities at the school.
Given the rich context of performance art forms of the district, several field excursions have been scheduled throughout the year. The efforts will be to facilitate students to enrich their creative sensibilities, which in turn would help them improve their journalistic writing skills for the newsletter.
The outcome of the grant will be six publications of newsletters that are shared with other cluster schools. Mounesh’s deliverables to IFA along with the final report will be copies of the newsletter, photographs and video documentation of the project.