Voices from the Field: Performance Arts and Literature | 2020

An Overview of the Scenarios and Needs for Current Creative, Infrastructural and Support
for the Performance Arts and Literature in India 
A report by Sammitha Sreevathsa

Once every five to six years, IFA undertakes a multi-pronged review of its grant programmes in order to reshape and recalibrate them according to the changing requirements of the field. This report has been commissioned with an objective to provide an overview of the current creative and infrastructural needs in the field of performing arts in India. By taking online and telephonic interviews of artists from across the spectrum of music, dance and theatre, this report seeks to represent the concerns, challenges, needs and aspirations of the performing artists across the country. As the name suggests, Voices from the field, draws on the artists’ perception of the field and of IFA’s current Arts Practice programme.

This report comes at a moment when the performing artists are economically, socially and psychologically grappling with the crisis of Covid-19 pandemic. The pool of financial capital they can draw from is rapidly shrinking. As the stage beneath their feet has slipped and they are left without access to performance venues and gatherings, performing artists from diverse socio-cultural backgrounds have been pushed to rearrange their career in a newly structured world.

As one might expect in the face of a crisis, the pressing need is that of survival, therefore making the role of a funding body as a provider more relevant than ever. There are artists who have had to temporarily renounce their career in the arts to find alternative means to earn a living and some others who have had to cut down on their meals. These concerns of the field call for the responsibility of the funder to be reconsidered, where supporting livelihood must be prioritized over rewarding excellence.

However, for many artists interviewed, working from home was not entirely unwelcome. One of the participants pointed out, that a definite “discovery” of the digital has led to a collective realization that it is possible to generate a career while being at home. These realizations, some believe, will remain a part of their work in future irrespective of the status of the pandemic. There have also been some unexpected outfalls of this pandemic. Artists especially with a classical background believe that this crisis has provoked some of the first articulations of personal insecurities and vulnerabilities in the otherwise silent field of classical arts.

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