Annual Report 2005-2006 - India Foundation for the Arts

NEW PERFORMANCERarely are the performing arts in India daringin form and content, ready to portray multilingualrealities, prepared to undertake genre-defying experimentsor willing to extend beyond middle class sensibilitiesand preoccupations. The compulsions ofstate patronage, the market fixation of corporatesponsorship and the constitution of the festival circuitcollude in keeping performance within strictdisciplinary and monolingual boundaries.It was in this context that IFA’s NewPerformance programme was introduced during theyear. It provides artists with opportunities to explorenew modes of making and presenting performance,to reach beyond their own specialisation to createnew performance styles or forms, or to generate contentthat introduces spectators to new perspectivesand realities. In brief, this programme’s interest liesnot in entertainment forms but in work that challengesthose who create it and those who witness it.Three grants have been made so far. One hassupported dancer Jhuma Basak to consolidateVersedance, an unusual experiment to reintegrate literature,theatre, music and dance. The grant enabledJhuma to develop three short pieces of Versedance.She also guided students from the literature departmentsof two universities in Kolkata to use this novelperformance form to illuminate and negotiate prescribedtexts in a manner that formal classroomteaching cannot do. The enthusiasm with which thisintervention was received by both students and facultysuggests that Versedance has a promising futurein educational contexts.Pondicherry-based theatre group Adishaktireceived a grant to create a production which alsostrives to cross genres in combining theatre and shadowpuppetry, and draws on contrasting material fromdifferent cultures to contemplate the philosophicaland cultural significance of racing and competing.Finally, Sunil Shanbag’s theatre productionCotton 56, Polyester 84, on the history and culture ofMumbai’s mill workers, was developed with our supportand premiered in February 2006. The performancehas been very well received by audiences and criticsalike. Reviews celebrated the play’s authentic portrayalof chawl life, calling it “a gritty true-to-life saga”.GRANTSJhuma Basak, BangaloreRs 5,36,700 over five monthsFor the further development of a new performanceform called Versedance. Three short pieces ofdance-theatre, based on poems by Rainer MariaRilke, Amrita Pritam Singh and Jibonananda Das,will be created and performed in Kolkata. The educationalpossibilities of Versedance will also beexplored with students at two universities in the city.Adishakti Laboratory for Theatre ArtResearch, PondicherryRs 6,40,000 over six monthsFor the creation of a production on The Hareand Tortoise, which will combine theatre and shadowpuppetry. Through constant improvisations andexperiments with the puppets, a script––which looksat famous races and a few imagined ones, with charactersfrom Indian epics as also from other cultures––willbe further developed and layered.Members of the theatre group will also train underresource persons from various traditional forms todevelop the content of the production.Sunil Shanbag, MumbaiRs 4,36,000 over four monthsFor the creation of a theatre production that willbring to light the suppressed history, subculture andmarginalised lives of the mill workers of Mumbai,who lost their jobs en masse as a result of the textilestrike in the 1980s. The mill workers once exerciseda very strong influence on Mumbai’s culture, buttheir plight has largely been ignored in the ragingpublic debate and legal battles over the future developmentof the mill lands. The production will beshown to mainstream audiences as well as workingclass communities in the mill lands area and elsewhere.