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.
For the design and editing of a monograph on Bengali artist Jamini Roy with images from some of his finest paintings. This builds on an earlier grant to inventory Indian modernist paintings and prints from the late eighteenth to the late twentieth century housed in the collection of Rajya Charukala Parishad, Kolkata.
For training the fundamentals of folk singing and instruments, particularly the Maand, to fifteen youngsters belonging to the musician community of Jamsar village in Rajasthan. Performances by thirty senior musicians of the region will be recorded and used as a resource in the teaching sessions. Senior musicians will also conduct workshops with the students on the nuances of the music quarter.
This Grant was Terminated by IFA and the Grantee is ineligible to apply to IFA in the future.
For a three-day international conference titled Archiving Art Histories: Exigencies and Challenges in Pedagogy and Research. The conference will survey the history of archiving, research and teaching practices of art history in Indian art schools. The conference will think through and devise ways of improving the present state of visual archives in art teaching institutions in the country.
For research on the socio-political history of modern Marathi theatre. The researcher will focus on the different political trends in Marathi theatre from the time of the first modern playwrights in Marathi to the present. The resulting manuscript will serve as a source for three plays that will bring political history of modern Marathi theatre to a larger theatre-going audience.
For a three-month residency programme for emerging Indian artists from an extended field of arts practice, towards nurturing collaborations and collective exchange. Six artists from diverse cultural and artistic backgrounds will spend between six weeks and three months at the BAR1 studios in Bangalore, developing individual pieces of art work and interacting with fellow artists. A public event showcasing the artists’ work in progress will be held at the end of the residency.
For making of an innovative biographical film on the path-breaking Marathi playwright Mahesh Elkunchwar, which will also explore the history and notions of experimentation in Marathi theatre. The film’s narrative will be driven by multiple voices and move seamlessly across Elkunchwar’s life and ideas in a non-linear manner, juxtaposing ‘real’ situations, people and spaces with the playwright’s ‘theatrical’ characters, situations and locals.
For the transformation of the Humayuna-nama, a sixteenth century chronicle of the Mughal emperor Humayun’s life, into a performance called Gulbadan, which will combine shadow puppetry and live acting with cinematic techniques and other visual media. Among other things, Gulbadan will portray the rarely recounted lives of Mughal women, their role in the Mughal court and the politics of the harem, which the chronicle documents in great detail.
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.
