For a series of workshops culminating in a two-day public art festival in the Chitpur locality of old Kolkata. These workshops are designed to re-energise and activate this locality which has a rich history and heritage, through various cultural activities, innovative audience engagement and archiving with the help of local residents, businessmen, artists, craftsmen, teachers and students. Outcomes of the project will include a website, an exhibition and a DVD documenting the process.
For research into the field recordings, texts and photographs of the Dutch ethnomusicologist Arnold Bake, during his time in Bengal from 1925 to 1934. Based on this archival material gathered from various archives in India and abroad, she will construct histories of music and portraits of people and places, thus adding to and energising the existing archive for folk music, 'The Travelling Archive'. The outcomes will be an exhibition and a book.
For a series of children’s workshops that imaginatively explore the patua folklore and its social and cultural environment towards the creation of children’s theatre performances. Situated primarily in two patua villages, Nayagram and Pingla in West Bengal, the project will focus on the children of the patua community offering them opportunities to reinvigorate the now dormant performative element of the Patachitra tradition.
For collaborative exploration between a Kathak dancer and a contemporary dancer, that poses questions for both these artists, pushing the classical dancer to open himself up to contemporary approaches of performance making; and the contemporary choreographer to work with and from the sensibilities of a classical idiom. The outcome will be a performance scheduled to premiere in December 2014.
For a part-documentary part-fiction film on the Bengali writer Nabarun Bhattacharya’s life and work which will explore his creative and psychological processes. The film will experiment with the ‘fantastic’ in an attempt to push the bounds of cinematic art and of current practices in the documentary and fiction film modes. The film will be disseminated through international television channels, film festivals, the internet and other non-mainstream avenues.
For the collection, digitization and archiving of 78 rpm gramophone records of Bengali plays performed between 1900 and 1930. The project will document the plays performed on stage as well as those produced exclusively for gramophone recordings.
For research leading to a travelogue on the songs performed during Muharram in various districts of West Bengal. The Muharram songs will be viewed as a part of a performative tradition that interprets and internalises the history of the Shia community. The recorded interviews and the songs will be documented as an audio-visual archive.
For research into indigenous children’s literature in the nineteenth century Bengal that burgeoned in opposition to the British education system and reclaimed displaced popular culture to establish an important swadeshi tradition. The research will culminate in an encyclopaedia and a website on indigenous children’s literature in the nineteenth century Bengal.
For the publication of a two-volume encyclopaedia and creation of an Internet archive of Bengali Theatre from 1795 to 2008. The encyclopaedia will include entries on theatre personalities, plays and production houses. A CD accompanying each volume will contain photographs, reviews and other material on plays and production companies.
For research into the linked histories of the radio, the gramophone and Bengali music in the early twentieth century towards an archive of printed materials, a monograph, and a reader collating and annotating articles from Betar Jagat (1930-1950)––a journal published by Calcutta Radio Station. The project will examine, source and collate print and audio-visual records pertaining to the early history of both media in order to map the evolution of Bengali music of the period.
