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 support to aurally map two archaeological sites - Nagarjunakonda in Andhra Pradesh and Guruvayoor Temple, Kerala – by recording their ambisonic properties, as a pilot project for a much larger exercise in India. The attempt is to both challenge the dominant visual understanding of history of these sites, as well as study the effects of industrialisation on listening practices. The larger exercise will include recordings for five more sites to be archived on a web platform, enabling users to recreate the listening experience of those sites with any recorded sound. While the outcome of this project is a film on the process of this pilot project, an audio installation accompanied by lecture-demonstrations is hoped for at the end of the larger exercise.
For the creation of a supportive environment for the eighth and ninth grade Urdu speaking local students, to develop positive self-identity through studying their own histories, and cultures through the literary arts, music and visual arts. The non local students will also be encouraged to participate, in order to appreciate the culture within which the school functions.
For the creation of a performance themed around narratives of the hair. Titled ‘A Brief History of Your Hair’, the performance draws upon personal, historical, political and gender narratives of the hair and uses humour, playfulness and fantasy to unpack questions of identity, androgyny, gendered beauty and the way these ideas relate to each other across cultures. The performance is expected to premiere in March 2016. Grant funds will pay for professional fees, performance costs and production costs.
For a film, that will depict through a musical journey, the narrative of a community called the Savita Samaj whose story has remained untold in spite of being musicians of the Nadaswaram over centuries. Using the instrument as a visual metaphor, the film will explore the socio-economic issues that are influencing the sweeping changes in the lives of the community members and the agony of their loss of a great open-air musical school.
For research on one of the kshetra kalas – the Poothan Thira, a ritual and performance based art form of the Mannan community in North Kerala. Using an auto-ethnographic approach, the researcher will create biographies of ten objects deemed significant to the art form, gleaned from conversations with ten community members. The outcome of this project will be a photo-essay and a digital online exhibition.
For the installation of a structure similar to an old-fashioned telephone booth under the Yeshwantpur flyover that will function as a story-telling machine, which recaptures a rapidly transforming Malleswaram, through recorded interviews of its residents.
For the creation of a performance inspired by the life and works of theatre legend B V Karanth that will take place at Karanth’s house in Girinagar, where he spent the last years of his life. There will also be two other smaller performances as preludes to the final one.
