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CREATIONS
SMITTEN & STARSTRUCK ~ FESTIVAL LINEUP
Available online from Aug. 8 - 16, 2021
गोल (GOL) GOAL?
(SHARING OF PROCESS)
Created by: Sangram Mukhopadhyay and Hemangi Shroff
Artists are always off time. And certainly not of their time. Their audiences, even far behind - but when biographies like ours become historical, can we then create with ‘real’ material through a fictional collaboration on a virtual space? Is the work made a testimony to both of us being equally disadvantaged and motivated?
THE SIGNIFICANCE OF STILLNESS
(WORK IN PROGRESS)
Created by: Celia Saroya & Manasvini S.
An amalgamation of the artist’s creative effort to articulate - both visually and using language - how the pandemic has upended our perception and understanding of the systems that govern our society. If we spent more time on creative pursuits, would we be better critical thinkers? Would this impact meaningful social change?
THE LETTER
(WORK IN PROGRESS)
Concept and Choreography: Lakshmy Ramakrishnan
Videography: Tishya Khare
Voice-over: Vishnu Rajan, Lakshmy Ramakrishnan
Background score: Epic Trailer 3676 by John Sib
This piece is an attempt to visualize a letter that might have been written during the time of the Indian Independence Movement. The set-up is of a prison. A mysterious woman (invisible to others) enters the space and is trying to make sense of it; when a man suddenly enters the room and sits down to write a letter to his family. She starts to read it from her perspective and emotes it using Bharatanatyam inspired gestures. Soon after, the words of the man take over her - she becomes him, his thoughts, his ideas.
BETWEEN US
(SHARING OF PROCESS)
Outdoors footage (licensed)
Interior footage by: Sania Khan
Edited by: Sania Khan
Written and Spoken by: Sania Khan and Sahil Sen
Music by: Tajdar Junaid
Between Us is a reflexive piece on our individual journeys with our artistry, gender fluidity and identities through times of uncertainty. While we each arrive to our stories from different places and experiences that have shaped us, our stories are interwoven in the most intricate of ways. This project is a space to share this intimate affirmation of ourselves with you, and
possibly find some of yourselves in us.
UNBECOMING
(WORK IN PROGRESS)
Dance & Choreography by: Sayli Kulkarni
Animation by: Tee Kundu
Camera by: Avanti Hejib & Pushkaraj Apte
Music by: Mayajaal Indrajaal
Editing by: Pushkaraj Apte
Venue: Abha & Harshad's Terrace
Sayli moves through her emotions as she struggles with what it means to live in tradition, whose tradition, to which traditional ends. As creatives, Sayli and Tee communicated in this collaboration with Sayli moving, and Tee drawing. As Tee finishes their part of this project, please give your attention and love to Sayli. To feel our feelings and making space for our feelings is a form of freedom, to love ourselves and all of who we are. Take your time. Be who you are meant to be.
ARAAJAKTA
(EXCERPT, EXPERIMENTAL PIECE, WORK IN PROGRESS)
Created and Performed by: Melitta Dsouza
Music: Roomful of Teeth - Partita for 8 Voices: No. 3, Courante
This piece is about the chaos that is all around us and within us and the constant struggle to break free from it. Chaos within caused by all the demons that isolation has set loose in our minds, chaos around because of all the unjust things happening in the world due to colour and caste differences, struggle to make ends meet, struggle to breathe in peace. But we will fight and we will pull through, this is the hope and prayer.
EVERY BODY CAN DANCE
(WORK IN PROGRESS)
Performed by: Maithri Rao
Digital Illustrations by: Karen Robert
Music by: Viraha - The Symphony of Separation
Flute Recital by: Kudamaloor Janardanan
Edited by: Maithri Rao
We created our inter-disciplinary dance piece about the struggle of someone that wants to dance, but feels the disappointment and restriction to have the “ideal” body type. Shame, disgust, embarrassment, and defeat hold her back. The notion of measuring up, being “just right” crushes the dancer's spirit. She must break through these barriers that stop her from experiencing the joy of dance and life itself. Our project is an experiment in blending performance and visual art into a unified piece. Experimentation, learning, building of one another’s ideas and working around our limitations of available time, time zones, individual commitments, budget, technology and skill sets were all part of the process in creating this collaborative work in progress
A CEREMONY OF SHARING
(SHARING OF PROCESS)
Performed by: Joshua Sailo and Zahra Badua
Illustrated by: Joshua Sailo
Edited by: Zahra Badua
By following the threads that connect us in weaving a common narrative, we unveil our authentic selves through our cultures, histories and lineages. The piece is a discovery of our shared experiences of existing in the nexus of cultural identities. Sharing breath, sharing movement, sharing gestures, sharing time.
LET GO
(WORK IN PRGRESS, EXPERIMENT)
Created by: Purawai Vyas and Vibhanshu Doshi
The piece takes us through themes of loss of identity, heartache, pain, self-destruction, and ultimately the transitioning one goes through by letting go and be a newer yet older version of themselves. The poem is in part conceptualized through the lens of a Nayika/nayaka relationship where, the nayika is the one who has aspirations, and the nayaka is the ideal that one constantly aspires for, only to realize both the nayika/nayaka are genderless and ultimately exist within oneself.
BHASA - THE LANGUAGE
(EXERPT)
Concept and Choreography by: Pintu Das
Performance by: Pintu Das
Mentor: Paramita Saha
Music by: Dustin O'Halloran, Remnant and Alvin Lucier
Space Provided by: Kolkata Centre of Creativity.
What happens when one language is needed to explain and justify another. What validation does the body and the way it moves need from those for whom dance is not enough? Bhasa (Sanskrit for Language) is a personal exploration of the ignominy of those who failed because they could not explain their gift, talent and art in English, a foreign language in India, where there are 22 local languages.
VENGE RENAÎTRE
(EXERPT)
Director and Choreographer: Shruti Suresh Starring: Nidhi Chauhan, Niranjan Harish Videographer: Sammy Adams
Editor: Pushyank Nahar
Location: Shoonya
Concept Development: Latha Srinivasa Set and Prop design: Karthik Kudekallu
Set, support, and backend work: Swati Iyengar
Where do we go when we die? Does our trauma get buried with us in our graves? All the misfortune, the abuse, the pain... who keeps an account of this? In this tale of twists, we witness a protagonist who maintains an account, a karmic account. She seeks revenge on her tormentor by luring him into a mental phantasm and slowly hauling him into his own descent.
I'M SORRY
(EXERPT)
Created & Performed by: Soti RPD
Written by: Kaite O’Reilly
I am Sorry is about identity and dis-identified. In his work SotiRPD is interested in how identity is constructed and perceived in a more globalized and fluid world with an increased mobility and an ever-faster access to information and imagery. We are looking for something in ourselves that remains, something worth to exist. What do we want to pass on and how do we do that? In “I’m Sorry” we show something of our own; our small stories, our weaknesses and desires.
SUPERNOVA
(WORK IN PROGRESS, EXPERIMENT)
Dancer: Esha Nanal
Writer: Nidhil Vohra
Music By: Debasmita Bhattacharya and Gurdain Rayatt
FIlmed by: Nitish Ghare
Edited by: Esha Nanal and Nidhil Vohra
Ideas form the fabric of society. The biggest inventions to the tiniest actions, all occur because someone had the idea to set a plan into motion. This piece aims to discuss and amplify the wonders that encompass a thought or an idea. It also talks about the burnout a person faces when thinking too much about an idea or when people think of their ideas as “not creative enough” or “not worthy” to be turned into a reality. We compare ideas to stars and encourage the listener to treat a dying idea like a dying star and go supernova with it i.e. to give your ideas everything you have got to see them turn into an actuality.
STRENGTH - A JOURNEY
(EXERPT)
Performed by: Nivetha Shree
Filmed and Edited by: Rajath Chandrasekar
This piece depicts the journey of a woman who comes out of her to find strength from within. She transforms the inner fire to rise and shine.