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 15-day puppetry workshop for nine participants from diverse artistic backgrounds with a traditional master Togalu Gombeyata practitioner. First among a series to be held over the next two years, the workshop expects to kickstart the process of building a robust discourse and pedagogy for puppetry in India through intensive training, discussions and artistic exchanges between traditional and contemporary puppeteers and other arts practitioners who draw from puppetry in form, content or aesthetics.
For an experimental HD video film on the Mars One project that aims to set up the first human settlement in Mars. Referencing the works of Jules Verne and Franklin Story Musgrave, the video will include scientific reports, plans, charts, confessional videos, personal journals, popular cinema clips and clips of varying audio frequencies interspersed with interviews with future astronauts. The artists also plan to create an exhibition and performance from the material created and gathered for the video.
For the creation of an inclusive programme for thirty pupils of the Puttenahalli Government School and their community, which will make use of creative interventions to build awareness about the environment and water conservation in their neighbourhood.
For the creation of a series of art-based experiential learning modules that are exploratory and open ended in nature where the child and the teacher become co-learners, at the Government Primary School, Vijayanagar in Belgaum.
For a series of site-specific performance art interventions at the Vinayaka Kalyana Mantapa, an abandoned building on Bellary Road that used to be a marriage hall until it was sliced in half during the construction of the road to the airport.
For a series of performance art interventions across various spaces in Bangalore by ten artists belonging to the 080:30 Collective. Each intervention will consist of several site-specific performances in areas like K R Market, Nayandanahalli Junction and Commercial Street in Bangalore. Each of the ten artists will work with five different spaces and their projects will be chosen through a process of discussion and evaluation within the collective.
For a site-specific performance on an artificial climbing wall located within Phoenix Market City mall in Mahadevapura, Bangalore. The performance will be developed through a process of research into and experimentation with aerial movement, visual design, climbing techniques and urban art by the grantees who are actors and avid mountaineers.
For a series of six performance art interventions on the streets of Basavanagudi and Hanumantnagar. Each performance will engage with the characteristic features of the city – its history, its colours and its people – in an attempt to examine questions about the artist’s roots and identity.
For a performance around the life and works of eminent Kannada writer Masti Venkatesha Iyengar. The performance will begin with a walk starting on the road in Gavipuram that is named after the writer, continue into Gandhi Bazaar and culminate at Bugle Rock near the Basavanagudi Club with a play devised from short stories written by Masti.
For a theatre performance produced by the group ‘Rangasiri’ around the Kempegowda tower located in Mekhri Circle. The tower, constructed by Kempegowda II, the grandson of the city’s founder Kempegowda, is closely associated with the history of Bangalore. Through interviews with historians and an investigation of historical records, the theatrical piece will be scripted and consequently staged around the tower.
For a physical theatre performance piece towards creating a personal vocabulary of movement and theatre. Based on impressions of the social, cultural and spiritual life on the river island Majuli in Assam, the performance through the medium of physical theatre will bring together movement, voice, image, light, costume and set design to evoke the spirit of the island.
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 a film and web platform on the journey of Warkaris, the Vaishnavite pilgrims who undertake an annual expedition to Pandharpur in Maharashtra. The filmmaker seeks to document the journey and map it on a web platform, while simultaneously linking various points enroute to textual material describing the journey. This project wishes to traverse the boundary between cinema and web technology where every viewer will have a different narrative experience of the journey depending on the choices they make.
For research towards a stylised documentary on Hindi pulp fiction that reflects the struggles of the writers and publishers as producers of ‘low art’. It will trace the journey of the writer through the system that enables the publishing and distribution of pulp fiction, thereby illustrating the ethos of the world that produces such material. This project is co-funded by Recyclewala Films Pvt. Ltd, Mumbai.
