For collaboration between four young directors to devise a Marathi stage adaptation of Attempts on Her Life, a play by Martin Crimp. The production will use mobile scenic design and multimedia images to explore the social and psychological complexities of the central character and examine the crisis of identity in contemporary society in Maharashtra.
For research on the Kshetrayya padam, a form of Carnatic music set to seventeenth century love poetry. The research will lead to a film exploring the representation of the Kshetrayya padam over the last two centuries. The film will examine how the Kshetrayya padam has been transmitted in independent India and how social and historical factors, particularly its association with the Devadasi tradition, have determined the position it now occupies in Carnatic music and the manner in which it has come to be represented in Bharatnatyam performances.
For the replication of the seventeenth century Ramayana murals of the Chengam Venugopala Parthasarthy temple on other media, including Kalamkari and digital animation. As an exploration of alternative forms of mural conservation, reconstruction and restoration, the relationships between the visual arts and animation, artists and filmmakers, conservators and the lay public will also be examined. This process will be disseminated via a multimedia website.
For research on the evolution of the Indian documentary film. Focusing on major figures and phases of development from the 1920s to the present, the project will chart the chronologies of different types of documentary filmmaking practices in India. The connection of technology, politics, community building, funding and censorship to documentary filmmaking will also be investigated. The outcome of the project will be the manuscript of a book and two paper presentations at seminars.
For the study of the relationship between digital technology and the folk art forms, especially the resistance arts, which draw on the Bundeli tradition of the Narmada Valley region of Madhya Pradesh. The research will map the transformation in these folk art forms with the advent of technology, leading to the creation of ‘digital folk arts’. The research findings will be documented in a DVD and will be uploaded on the Jatan Trust website.
For a one-day symposium on 'Theatre Pedagogy for Children' and a ‘Teacher Training Initiative’, both intended to spark a long-term engagement of teachers with education through theatre. Ranga Shankara will organise these two-day activities under the umbrella of its first ever theatre festival for children. Some of the teachers from Kali-Kalisu workshops will also participate in the one-day training.
For a residency programme which nurtures collaboration and exchange among emerging Indian artists. Four artists from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds will spend three months at the BAR1 studios in Bangalore, developing individual pieces of art work and interacting with fellow artists. The artists’ work in progress will be exhibited at the end of the residency.
For an innovative stage adaptation of Dharmvir Bharati’s modern Hindi novella, Suraj ka Satvaan Ghoda. Creating stage space using human bodies and experimenting with choreography and chorus, this play will weave a single narrative from the novella’s fragmented stories about seven characters. The psyche and perspective of each character will be explored through movements and soundscapes drawn from indigenous dance and musical forms.
For turning the performance script S*x, M*rality and Cens*rship, which was developed with the help of an earlier research grant from IFA, into a stage production. The script specifically looks at at the censorship battles fought over the play Sakharam Binder and the audience and critical responses to the production. Audio and video material secured during the research phase will be incorporated in the envisaged docudrama to recreate the cultural context of the 1970s.
For a residency that supports four emerging choreographers to explore and test their creative ideas, develop their choreographic skills and build a working methodology for dance creation. The resident artists will each be paired with a mentor who will help to stimulate their interpretive and creative processes. The residency will culminate with a public presentation of original solo or ensemble performances by the resident artists.
For an exploration of the body in pain through a re-visioning of Samuel Beckett’s play Act without Words I and Act Without Words II. An Argentinean story will be used to devise the plot and action, and introduce new meanings into Beckett’s plays. The production will also situate the experience of physical pain within the social context of the performers. A script in Malayalam will be developed and layered through games, and constant improvisations and experiments with actors.
For research and documentation of the Bhagait folk ballad tradition, popular among marginalised and Dalit castes from the Indo- Nepal region bordering Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The project will investigate the additions, deletions and reinventions in this art form. The research will lead to two critical essays and audio-visual materials, which will be archived at the G.B. Pant Social Science Institute, Allahabad, and other print materials such as posters, pamphlets and articles, which will be uploaded on the Institute’s website.
For research leading to a monograph on the comic strip Cheriya Manushyarum, Valiya Lokavum (Small Men and the Big World) created by G.Aravindan, the internationally acclaimed film maker, which appeared in a Malayalam literary weekly from 1961 to 1973. Video interviews with cartoonists, scholars, family members, historians and readers and a bibliography of critical texts, essays and books on comics and graphic novels will be archived on the website of the Centre for Performance Research and Cultural Studies in South Asia.
For research into the work of artists Angelo Da Fonseca, whose paintings gave Christian art an Indian face in Portuguese Goa of the late colonial period. The research will trace the trajectory of Fonseca’s work in relation to the formation of the complex national identities within small enclaves like Goa. The research will lead to a monograph, the publication of two critical essays and an inventory of all of Fonseca works that exist outside the Xavier Centre of Historical Research, Goa.
For research towards a book on the history and evolution of the little magazine movement from 1881 to 2010. The book will investigate the role of women writers, publishers, sponsors and critics in the little magazine movement, and the correlation between literature, social change and other art forms like painting, cinema and theatre. Digital copies of significant little magazines from 1960 to 1975 (a time of radical literary invention through the little magazines) will be distributed to university libraries and institutions across Maharashtra.
