Gangappa S Lamani

This Foundation Project implemented by IFA will engage 25 students from the fourth, fifth and sixth grades of the Government Higher Primary School, in Alkeri Gauliwada, Uttara Kannada district in exploring a local community dance form Radmal that is rapidly vanishing from these regions and the cultural life of the Gauli community. This project will attempt to integrate the syllabi of Kannada, Social Science, History and Math from the text books through the learning of this form. Gangappa S Lamani is the Coordinator for this project. 

Gangappa S Lamani is an Assistant Teacher from Kiravatti, Uttara Kannada district. He has a Master in Education from Dharwad University. In his previous project with IFA Gangappa encouraged his students to document the narratives of the Gauli families and its migration across Maharashtra and Karnataka. By documenting stories and interviews that project also aimed to explore various aspects of identity, belonging, discrimination, self-expression, and legacy. He has engaged with the parents, developed a rapport winning their confidence to ensure that children attend school regularly. This project will be a collaboration with the community. Given his experience he is best placed to be the Coordinator of this Foundation Project of IFA. 

Physical and spatial intelligence comes from practicing movements that exercises the entire body. They also increase memory, sense of order, and sequencing skills. Creating dance formations also increases self-esteem which is an important aspect of learning. Radmal, a community dance form of the Gauli community, is integral to their cultural identity. However, increasing industrialisation, economic pressures and the invasion of new media have led to less and less participative activities of the community disconnecting them from their roots and each other. Thus less and less people dance the Radmal. 

Men from the Gauli community perform this dance during Holi festival wearing unique and decorative costumes accompanied by various instruments. “If you want to know the background of this dance form – this is it. After burning Kamanna (god of love) other communities play with colours. But our community wants to look colourful by wearing half pant, shirt, coloured jacket and modern cooling glasses. One of the devotees of Krishna dress up as him, and two others dress as Radha and Rukmini wearing cooling glasses, beads around their necks, and holding a bunch of peacock feathers. They dance while singing a song and chants of ‘Chaang Bhala’ ring in the air.”- says Navalu Vittu Zore, a community leader. This form of dance is a means to tell stories to the audience. So, the project aims at enabling students to use texts of the curriculum as narratives for the dance pieces. 

Gangappa will conduct a series of workshops on the Radmal dance form facilitated by a group of young community dancers. He will also request senior students and members of the Gauli community, poets, writers, and theatre artists to conduct workshops on understanding the texts that they would like to make into narratives for the dance, and also connect to their own language. He is confident that this process of engagement will help students explore the deeper meaning of the curriculum texts. 

The outcome of the project will be a series of performances. The Project Coordinator’s deliverables to IFA with the final report will be photographs and video documentation of the project including the performances. Project funds will pay for stationery and materials, workshop, performance, travel and contract fees.

This project suitably addresses the framework of IFA’s Arts Education programme in the manner in which it attempts to connect students and schools to the cultural knowledge of the local communities they live in. 

IFA will ensure that the implementation of this project happens in a timely manner and funds expended are accounted for. IFA will also review the progress of the project at midterm and document it through an Implementation Memorandum. After the project is finished and all deliverables are submitted, IFA will put together a Final Evaluation to share with Trustees.