For the editing, designing and printing of Tamasha: Ek Rangadi Gamat, a book in Marathi on the Tamasha folk theatre form. The book––one of the outcomes of an IFA-supported documentation project––will contain about 250 photographs accompanied by text that describes the different forms of Tamasha prevalent in Maharashtra as well as the lifestyles of its performers.
For digital photography and annotation of 5,500 miniature paintings largely from the Jaina traditions of Gujarat and Rajasthan. The paintings, ranging from the seventeenth to the early twentieth century, form an eclectic and unique collection. to facilitate research on the materials. The project will improve scholarly access to the miniature paintings and facilitate preservation of the original materials.
For continuing the implementation of a dance-in-education programme in Bangalore. Movement classes will be conducted in schools and a cadre of dance teachers trained to facilitate the dance-in-education work. Funds will also be used to strengthen the institution’s capacity to sustain this programme through income from other sources.
For arts education groups and professionals in Southeast Asia and India to collaborate on workshops in built heritage, theatre, the visual arts and dance. Apart from facilitating creative exchange and mutual learning, these workshops are expected to help participants to build new methodologies and strengthen their practices in arts education.
For four art historians to identify, edit and annotate critical writing––in Bengali, Malayalam, Gujarati and Marathi respectively––on the visual arts in the first half of the twentieth century. The resulting selections will be published with the aim of reintroducing to a contemporary audience.
For creation of a production on ‘The Hare and Tortoise’, which will combine theatre and shadow puppetry. Through constant improvisations and experiments with the puppets, a script––which also looks at other famous races and a few imagined ones, with characters from Indian epics as also from other cultures––will be further developed and layered. Members of the theatre group will also train under resource persons from various traditional forms to develop the content of the production.
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 the making of a film exploring the cultural history of Tibetan Buddhism in Sikkim through the sacred dance theatre of Chham. The film will examine this ritual dance as it shapes and is shaped by its religious and cultural contexts, as well as the mutations in its traditional meanings through modernity and education. Titled The Listener’s Tale, the film seeks to be a witness to the contradictions and counter-forces that sustain this ancient art practice, the plurality of meanings it generates, and the active dialogue between the consciousness of the performers of Chham and its spectators.
For research into the history of Marathi Farce in the late nineteenth century and early twentieth century. The project will take into the account the social critique implicit in this form of theatre, as well as study female impersonation which was a characteristic of all Marathi theatre of this period. The research will lead to the writing of a monograph, translations of two Farces, and the creation of an archive of documents on the subject.
For the publication of a book that documents the history of print advertising in the Bengali language, analysing its various forms and modes, and the media through which it was displayed and printed. The book will also catalogue commercial artists and their contribution to text and visual, and the impact of advertising on the material culture of Bengali households and patterns of consumption. In addition, a visual archive of over 3,000 documents will be made available on the Internet to trigger further research in the area.
For updating and digitising a database on performance spaces in Karnataka. The updated database will contain information on the location of each space, the nature of its stage and auditorium, its seating capacity, rental details, spatial dimensions, the types of other spaces attached to it, and equipment available. The database will be available to theatre groups, students of theatre and research scholars on a CD and will eventually be uploaded onto a website.
For the production of a film on family photo-albums. The film will explore different elements of personal relationships to photo-albums by looking at how photographs can make for identification and a sense of continuity with the past, how they preserve memories, how albums are constructed based on an idealised notion of family, and how family albums can move from having purely personal to historical and archival relevance.
For research into the Bharuds––allegorical verses from the mid fifteenth century attributed to Sant Eknath. Compiled by the followers of the Bhakti saint, Bharuds exist in Maharashtra as written texts, apart from being recited as poems, sung as bhajans and kirtans, and dramatised during the pilgrimage of vari and other religious occasions. Combining ethnographic study of the vari with the social histories of the performers, the research will engage with the makings of this marginalised cultural tradition and examine the differences between its oral, written and performative forms.
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 research towards the writing of a novelised history of Tiruchenkode in Namakkal district, Tamil Nadu. A town with an ancient history, Tiruchenkode is today marked by its hill temple dedicated to Murugan and Ardhanareeswara but is also known for its vibrant modern industry. In the course of writing a historical account of Tiruchenkode, the author will document references to the town in literature, folklore and mythology, analyse the town’s design and study its ritual and religious life.
