For research towards a short film and a website on K Ramanujam (1940-1973), an artist who lived and worked in Cholamandal Artists’ Village, an artists’ commune near Chennai. The research will shed light on the nature of his pen and ink drawings of fantasy landscapes and mythical cities, which reveal how his concerns were distinct from those of other artists at Cholamandal at the time. While the website will include documentation gathered from archival materials and interviews with Ramanujam’s contemporaries, the film will be an artistic response to the spirit of Ramanujam’s artwork.
For a solo, multi-media performance titled Light Does Not Have Arms to Carry Us. Inspired by the structure of richly expressive and percussive piece of music composed for the piano, the project will create a performance combining movement, mime, film and voice.
For research towards a film on work songs, known as Li, sung by the inhabitants of Phek village in Nagaland. These work songs and chants have no lyrics but are vocalizations, grunts and sighs that are transformed into polyphonic melodies, while their music makers are busy harvesting paddy. This research is a part of a larger project to document and share everyday music and rhythms from across India.
For preserving and sustaining the performance practice and repertoire of the Bettiah gharana, one of the oldest and richest traditions of dhrupad. Through interactions with two contemporary musicians living in Kolkata and Bettiah, the musical ecology of Bettiah dhrupad will be documented and reinvigorated. The project will result in a multimedia physical archive located in Bettiah and Kolkata, an online portal and a guided listening DVD of the dhrupad of Bettiah.
For a two-day conference bringing together archivists, scholars, collectors and artists to examine the role of the archive in shaping the history of early Tamil cinema. The publication of the papers presented at the conference, along with an exhaustive filmography of Tamil films from 1930, will serve as a basic reference for further research.
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 the production of a new choreographic work titled Beautiful Thing 1. This performance will investigate the interplay of sound, word, movement and meaning, and attempt to bridge the gaps between our historical memories and contemporary selves.
For the making of a two-part film on the Draupadi Amman Mahabharatha Koothu festival that is celebrated in over 200 villages in Tamil Nadu every year. Draupadi is the presiding deity of the festival and the Mahabharata is narrated as a story, re-created as theatre and performed as a ritual for her. The first part of the film will explore the mythology of the Draupadi cult and the history of the region, the second part will document the villagers reciting, performing and living the Mahabharata for the duration of the festival.
For conceptualising and producing an installation based on the video documentation of the unique performance language developed in Brhannala, a production by Adishakti, a Pondicherry based theatre group.
For research into comic book culture in India towards developing a script/storyboard for a video or comic book. The relationship between the mediums of film, painting and comic books will be explored through a combination of research, video documentation and making of an art work.
