For a series of workshops for children in and around Bangalore by a storytelling team comprising a teacher, a craft specialist and an administrator. The project will connect storytelling to other creative activities, demonstrate alternative ways of looking at learning, and initiate a plan to establish a resource centre for storytelling and allied activities.
For workshops by a theatre director, a classical dance exponent and a traditional folk theatre group to share teaching and performance techniques and practices. The collaboration is expected to help the theatre group to formulate survival strategies, the dancer to reintroduce narrative singing and storytelling into Kuchipudi performance, and the director to strengthen training for his actors.
For workshops in villages and small towns by urban visual artists/potters and tribal and folk potters to facilitate an exchange of skills and techniques in pottery and ceramics.
For research and examination, by a theatre director, a contemporary actor and a musician, of the textual nature of music in Koodiyattam, the classical theatre of Kerala. The project will result in a new theatre piece and a reworked version of an earlier production.
For continuing the work between an urban visual artist from Mumbai and four traditional artists in Bastar District, Madhya Pradesh, who will gain an appreciation of one another’s aesthetic concerns, techniques and creative processes. Paintings, sculptures and video films that emerge may form part of urban public installations.
For a Karnataka tour of three contemporary shadow-puppetry performances targeted at children and involving university departments of folklore. The performances, which were jointly created by theatre artists, visual artists, musicians and puppeteers, will introduce children to the arts and help sustain folk performance traditions.
For a fresh examination of the dynamics between theatre and social action, by a coordinating body for welfare organisations in rural West Bengal, two social organisations, and three theatre workers. Through fieldwork and a series of workshops, the collaborators will explore how spontaneous performance can be refined to invigorate activist theatre.
For developing concepts and a treatment for a dance video by a contemporary choreographer and a filmmaker. They will examine the architecture of two stone quarries as possible venues for video-recording dance sequences, generate additional images using computer animation techniques, and experiment with grafting these onto the on-site sequences.
