ART EAST FESTIVAL 2021: TELL ME A STORY-12TH TO 14TH AUGUST 2021
Organised in collaboration with New Imaginations, Jindal School of Journalism and Communication. Curated by Kishalay Bhattacharjee, Associate Professor and Director, New Imaginations, O. P. Jindal Global University, Sonipat
This year’s edition of the festival, Tell me a Story will be held as a virtual festival focusing on the theme of storytelling. The festival will showcase a slice of folk/traditional craft and contemporary art that were originally storytelling rituals with a visual and performative aspect that overtime became a practise. The virtual festival includes exhibitions, film screenings, and talks/discussions.
Art as Storytelling
Online exhibition of paintings, photographs and photographic collages, illustrations, texts and video installation.
Works by Prakash Patra, Pattachitra artist from Bhubaneswar; photographic collages and painting by Isaac Tsetan Gergan from Ladakh; illustrations by Sirawon Tulisen Khathing from Shillong with texts by Rachel Lyngdoh; crafting stories by Siddhartha Das; and photographs and video installation by Parasher Baruah
Crafting Heritage
Illustrated lecture by Siddhartha Das, curator, designer, visual artist and teacher
Siddhartha Das will share some of the projects done in the last 20 years, where he has created spaces, installations and products collaborating with traditional craftspeople and artists from across the country
The lecture will be accessible from 10 am on 12th August 2021 until 7 pm on 14th August 2021
Special video recording of the lecture for ArtEast 2021
ArtEast 2021: Tell me a Story - Film Festival Part I
Living Stories: Storytelling Traditions of India | (26 min; 2011; English and with subtitles)
Director: Neela Venkataraman
The film takes us on a journey to different parts of India, to explore the different kinds of storytelling arts in India – from Pandvani, a storytelling art in Chhattisgarh to Kathakali in Kerala
Unfolding the Pata Story | (54 min; 2014; Bengali with English subtitles)
Director: Supriyo Sen
The film celebrates the unique life and dynamic spirit of the Patua community - of Rupban, Rani, Dukhushyam and other traditional scroll painter, who have fought all odds to redefine their position as social commentators in the global world.
Janambhumi Charaoli (Leaving my Motherland) | (12 min; 2021; English subtitles)
Director: Parasher Baruah
A short documentary on the songs of the Adivasi community working in the tea gardens of Assam. The film explores the history of migration and displacement through their songs. The film examines popular songs like Choi Mini Assam Jabo and how they identify themselves in a home where they are forever outsiders
Divinity Cloth – Mata ni Pachedi ( 7 min)
Director: Partha Protim Baruah
This short film is an introduction to the making of Mata ni Pachedi, an impressive form of textile art that serves the purpose of a shrine for the marginalized and excluded.
Of Bards and Beggars (30 min; 2003; English subtitles)
Directors: Shweta Kishore, Yask Desai
Of Bards and Beggars documents in detail a musical ritual called Pabuji Jaagran, an all-night epic recitation by Rajasthani folk musicians. This story centres around a folk deity called Pabuji, a protector of livestock. The Pabuji legend is widely popular in Western Rajasthan among a shepherd community from the Rebari (Raika) caste. An oral tradition passed from generation to generation by word of mouth, the entire Pabuji epic would take 36 hours to recite.
The film will be accessible from 10 am on 12th August 2021 until 7 pm on 14th August 2021
Stories on Warp and Weft
Illustrated lecture by Ms Sentila Tsukjem Yanger, culture conservationist, textile specialist, and art and craft curator
Moderator: Kishalay Bhattacharjee
In the absence of a script and before the written word, the Nagas relayed the orality of verbal expressions through songs, folklores and in the language of cloth. The transmission of oral traditions conveyed in these practices have been passed down from generation to generation. Sentila Yanger will examine the woven narratives on the Tsüngko Tep Sü painted on cloth, the suggestive emblematic symbolisms in relation to representation of form in the figurative motifs on the shawl and variants of the mantle
ARTEAST 2021: TELL ME A STORY
The Intriguing tale of the Patta Chitra Patuas of Bengal and other Concerns
Illustrated lecture by Ms Ritu Sethi, Founder-Trustee, Craft Revival Trust and Editor, Global InCH, the international journal of intangible cultural heritage
Moderator: Kishalay Bhattacharjee
Providing a background to the great lineage of pictorial story-telling in India, Ritu Sethi tracks the transformation of the evolving nature of this form by tracking the Patuas of Bengal
AAJ KAVITA
An Evening of Poetry
With poets - Malay (Jabalpur); Teji Grover (Hoshangabad); Natasha (Patna); and Krishna Mohan Jha (Silchar) who will read their own work
Moderator: Ashok Vajpeyi
(Collaboration: The Raza Foundation)
The programme can be accessed on:
facebookLive@razafoundation
YouTube@The Raza Foundation
The Unorthodox (Israel)
From 12th August 2021 from 12.00 midnight to 13th August 2021, 11.59 hours
(92 min; 2018; Hebrew & Yiddish with English subtitles)
Director: Eliran Malka
Recipient of the Award of the Israeli Academy for Best Art Direction, Best Costume Design, Best Editing & Best Make-up, Academy of Israeli Film Academy 2019; and Key to Discovery Award for Best Film, Moscow Jewish Film Festival 2019. An orthodox single father whose daughter was expelled from school for ethnic reasons, decides to run for the city elections and almost single-handedly established the first ethnic political group in Israel. The political party is today an empire with half a million voters and plays a significant role in society. Based on a true story.
To watch the film, kindly please register on:
https://forms.gle/MLAAAvd9XUjZ7nCMA
(Collaboration: Embassy of Israel)
Olympia
Is Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia Nazi propaganda – or the greatest film about sport ever made? The two-part documentary has been acclaimed as a masterpiece that revolutionised the way sport was depicted on screen. This epic record of the 1936 Berlin Olympic Games attempts to combine sporting reportage with a celebration of physical beauty and the spectacle involved in this uniquely unifying event. And what cinema historians still debate today is whether Riefenstahl was defying Goebbels and Hitler all those summers ago, or whether she was doing exactly what they wanted.
Olympia Part Two: Festival of Beauty (Olympia 2. Teil-Fest der Schönheit) | ( Click here to watch )
(90 min; 1938; b/w/; German with English subtitles)
Director: Leni Reifenstahl
Recipient of the Mussolini Cup for Best Foreign Film, Venice Film Festival 1939
Part Two features the track and field events. Riefenstahl captures the grace of athletes during field hockey, soccer, cycling, equestrian, aquatic and gymnastic events. Riefenstahl celebrates the human body by combining the poetry of bodies in motion with close-ups of athletes in the heat of competition. The production tends to glorify the young male body and, some say, expresses the Nazi attitude toward athletic prowess. Highlights are the Pentathlon and the Decathlon, which was won by American Glenn Morris; it ends with the triumphant conclusion of the games.
Rebetiko (Rembetiko)
(54 min; 2010)
Director/Choreographer: Yannis Adoniou
Music: Minos Matsas
Vocalist: Catherine Clambaneva
Shadow Theatre Artist: Leonidas Kassapides
Yannis Adoniou, the artistic director of KUNST-STOFF, has become known for his unusual and highly visual theatrical dance works, which merge different art forms, often creating unexpected collisions and provocative beauty. Rebetiko explores the origins and evolution of Rembetiko, the “illegal” folk music of the underground hashish dens of Pireaus and Thessaloniki, frequently compared to the American blues as a form of musical expression for the desperate and despairing. The Greco-Turkish War uprooted some two million people, and Rembetiko gave voice to their extreme anguish. Using elements of Greek folk and post-modern dance, darkness and song, choreographer Yannis Adoniou, vocalist Catherine Clambaneva and shadow theatre artist Leonidas Kassapides excavate their homeland’s history to create a sensorially captivating work.
Vicenza and the Genius of Palladio
A virtual tour of the city conducted by Caterina Brazzi Castracane, historian, author and tour guide
Vicenza, known as the “city of Palladio”, was founded in the 2nd century B.C. in northern Italy. Vicenza prospered under Venetian rule from the early 15th to the end of the 18th century. The work of Andrea Palladio (1508–80), based on a detailed study of classical Roman architecture, gives the city its unique appearance. Palladio's urban buildings, as well as his villas, scattered throughout the Veneto region, had a decisive influence on the development of architecture. His work inspired a distinct architectural style known as Palladian, which spread to England and other European countries, and also to North America.
An initiative of the Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, New Delhi and Bell’Italia 88