Insaf

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will engage seventh grade students of Government Higher Primary School in Chittavadagi, Hospet taluk, Vijayanagara district with the project titled Naisargika Layadalli Hindustani Sangeetada Mukhakuhi, connecting the rhythmic patterns of nature with Hindustani music. Students will be engaged in a series of listening activities to capture and observe various sound patterns in nature in relation to Hindustani musical rhythms. These sound explorations will be linked to their curriculum in environmental science and languages. Insaf will be the Coordinator for this project. 

Insaf is a trained Hindustani singer and a theatre artist. He has performed across India in various art festivals and events. Insaf has worked as a musician with many theatre personalities in Kannada theatre. His encounter with Ninasam, Rangayana, and Nirdiganta theatre spaces has helped him to look deeper into his own practice. Insaf has been working as a facilitator in many arts workshops for children across Karnataka and he was invited as a resource person for the teachers training workshop organised by IFA. Given his experience he is best placed to be the Project Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA.     

Music is a unique form of communication that can impact the feelings, thoughts, and behaviours of students. Music helps students to enhance their learning and boosts their self-esteem. It combines intellect with empowering personal expression, reflection, and emotional development. As an integral part of culture, both past and present, music helps students understand themselves, connect with others, and develop their cultural awareness, forming important links between home, school, and the wider world. Music and rhythmic patterns are essential subjects that should be integrated into the curriculum. It leads to significant brain development for students, enhances human connection, and improves cognition. However, in many school systems, music is often not accessible and has been side-lined to make room for other subjects.

This project focuses on the learning possibilities offered by understanding music and rhythmic patterns. Students will be encouraged to listen and observe sounds that surround them in nature and those that they encounter in their day-to-day life. They will be engaged with artistic activities and theatre games around music and rhythms. Students will learn to recognise rhythm in animal movements, bird calls and other sounds in nature. These sounds will then be connected to Hindustani musical taal and laya to explore the confluence of natural sounds with a classical music form.

The Project coordinator will work with teachers and students in selecting the topics from their environmental science and language curriculum to learn about how rhythmic structures of poetry are composed, and will be guided to create their own poems based on their understanding. The Project coordinator will play sounds and encourage them to create stories or poems inspired by these sounds. This kind of experimental and creative activities are planned throughout the year. Based on their learnings, students will explore how the rhythms of Hindustani music relate to natural rhythms. 

The process will involve creating musical instruments from the found objects like leaves, tile pieces, sticks, and stones; and also, voices and beat boxing, body percussion, and so on. This project encourages teachers to teach a more comprehensive music curriculum outside the classroom without a need to purchase any additional musical instruments. All the activities of the project will culminate into a musical performance. Poems and stories written by the students will be published in a small handbook at the end of the project. 

The outcome of the project will be a performance in the presence of school, staff and villagers and a publication. The deliverables to IFA with the final report will include a copy of the publication, still and video documentation of the process, performance, and exhibition.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Education programme in the manner in which it attempts to help students connect their school curriculum to the stories from the regions they inhabit and communities they live with.

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.