For the making of a film on Surabhi, a 120-year old travelling theatre company from Andhra Pradesh. Envisaged as a journey with the repertory company, the film, titled Mayabazar, will examine the everyday activities of these travelling actors and their families, rehearsals, exercises, the staging of the plays based on the epics and the puranas, the audience, sets, make-up and costume design. The film will also explore the traces of Parsi theatre, silent cinema from the Phalke era and the paintings of Ravi Verma in the design of the theatre company’s sets and costumes.
For post-production work on a film tentatively titled, In Search of Umrao, exploring the social and cultural history of the tawaifs of North India. The film focuses on the arts forms associated with them and the relationship between aesthetic expression and sexual identity. Through the story of a lost thumri sung by Rasoolan Bai, whose career as a performer overlapped with significant transitions in both the practice of music and public female sexualities, the film will examine the major shifts in the tradition’s history.
For digitising the archive of a literary magazine in order to maximise its website’s potential to serve as an educational resource and be an avenue for revenue generation. Marketing initiatives that target Indian and foreign universities and institutions are expected to help the magazine to become self-sustainable.
For putting in place a multi-pronged process to reinvigorate the bhakti and sufi music of the Punjab. Systematic audio documentation bolstered by an innovative marketing strategy—direct sales by the performers in the rural market and online sales from a website—is expected to economically benefit the performers and expand their audience.
For research into performing traditions and changing structures of patronage in Maharashtra. By investigating Marathi theatrical practices that emerged in the 1840s, the study seeks to document how elite and popular performative forms were reconstituted in the latter half of the nineteenth century.
For preparatory research and documentation towards a film on the Sufi and bhakti music of the Punjab. The audio-visual documentation will be made available to music researchers through cultural organisations.
For the publication of a book on the use of photography as a social tool by the Bengali upper class in the late-nineteenth and early-twentieth centuries. The book, to be published by the Oxford University Press, will be made available at a subsidised price.
For collaborative research between an installation artist/set designer and an anthropologist towards a multimedia installation/exhibition on the visual culture of the Thiyyas, a community from North Kerala.
For making a film on the New-Delhi based theatre group, Jan Natya Manch, that will critically explore its history and contemporary practices. Combining archival footage with documentation of contemporary performances, the film will especially focus on Nukkad Natak (street theatre).
For creating a comprehensive collection of material on the Indian Peoples’ Theatre Association (IPTA). Through interviews, archival research, and the compilation of material generated on and by IPTA, the researcher will arrive at an account of the first, collective, pan-Indian cultural movement in independent India.
