Programme Details

Dedicated to Smt. Kamaladevi Chattopadhyaya

Organised in collaboration with Kathkatha Puppet Arts Trust and with the support of the Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, the festival includes a seminar; shadow puppet festival; and screening of films

From 10:00 to 17:00 in Conference Room II
Out of Shadows: Discussions on the Plurality of Shadow Puppets
Keynote Address by Anurupa Roy, Indian puppeteer, puppet designer and director of puppet theatre

Presentations by Prof. Peter W. Marx, German theatre and performance studies scholar, Chairperson of Theatre and Media Studies, University of Cologne; Prof. Kaushik Bhaumik, Associate Professor in Cinema Studies, School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; Airan Berg, international working theatre maker and artistic director, who specialises in large scale participatory and inclusive objects; he is the Artistic Director of Festival deer Regionen; Gunduraju, who belongs to a family of Togalu Gombeyaata, shadow puppeteers from Karnataka; Prof. Gouranga Charan Dash, Srirama Institute of Shadow Theatre; Ranjana Pandey, Editor and Publisher of Sutradhar and President, UNIMA India; and Dr. Atul Sinha, Assistant Professor  

AT 18:30 IN THE C.D. DESHMUKH AUDITORIUM
Film Before Film (Was geschah wirklich zwischen den Bildern/ Germany)
(83 min; 1986; German with English subtitles)
Director: Werner Nekes

An exhilarating and amusing encyclopedic look at the “prehistory” of cinema. Nekes charts the fascination with moving pictures which led to the birth of film, covering shadow plays, peep shows, flip books, flicks, magic lanterns, lithopanes, scrolls and numerous historical artifices
 

Presented by GokulSree Dass and Rahul Varshney, disciples of Guru Durga Charan Ranbir
Curated by Prof. Ashish Khokar

Accompanists: Sukant Kundu (vocal); Dhaneswar Swain (percussion); Pradeep Ray (violin);  Abhiram Nanda (flute); Prakash Chandra Mohapatra (sitar); and Prasant Kumar Mangaraj (cymbals)

The artists will showcase the Guru Deba Prasad style of Odissi under the mentorship of Guru Durga Charan Ranbir who will be present

Love Ballad of Jharkhand

By Megha Sriram Dalton, from Daltonganj, Jharkhand. Megha is today one of the most promising folk singers of the state. Apart from folk, she has also made her debut in Bollywood giving them the best songs. She was awarded a scholarship from H.R.D. Ministry, Govt. of India for working and promoting folk music of Uttar Pradesh and Bihar. Megha gained popularity following her coke studio performance with Shankar Mahadevan

Screening of Documentary Films on Folk Art & Music

Colours of Earth (64 mins; English)
Director: Shefali Bhushan

A unique film about the traditional music of India which takes viewers on a journey across rural India, situating folk music as it is traditionally performed in the villages and small towns of rural India. The film received an overwhelming response at each and every screening including those at the prestigious Smithsonian Center at Washington D.C., the University of Chicago, University of California, Los Angeles, Stanford University, California, among others. The film was an official entry at the Vitas Film and Folklore Festival held at UCLA, where it received the "Best Soundtrack Award".

Pabuji ka Phad (22 mins; English)
Director: Shammi Nanda

Produced by Films Division

Pabuji is believed to be an avtar of Laxman and is worshiped as a warrior saint in Rajasthan. The Bhopa's of the Bhil Community sing his story against the backdrop of a 15 feet long painting called a phad.

Unfolding the Pata Story (50 min; 2014; Bengali with English subtitles)
Director: Supriyo Sen

Produced by PSBT

Film on Rupban and other traditional scroll painters (Patuas) of Odisha and their struggles for a sustainable livelihood.

Conceptualised and Curated by Anisha Shekhar Mukherji

Learning from Jaisalmer

A talk by Professor Vinod Gupta: architect, designer and teacher, founder member of Gubbi Alliance for Sustainable Habitat, and founder member of GRIHA Council, Fellow of the Indian Institute of Architects, member of the Institute of Indian Interior Designers, Indian Society of Ergonomics. Professor Gupta has taught at SPA Delhi and Sushant School of Art and Architecture. As partner in Space Design Consultants (SDC) and as CEO of Opus Indigo Designs Pvt. Ltd., he works on environment friendly architecture, interior design, furniture design, and sustainable planning. Jaisalmer was the subject of his PhD research at IIT Delhi on building physics completed in 1984. The talk, Learning from Jaisalmer will present his work on aspects of cities in the desert, and alternatives to the wholly unsuitable Western models that have replaced traditional Indian tools and methods of working and learning.

The talk will be followed by a dialogue with Snehanshu Mukherjee, architect, educator and writer, Adjunct Professor, Indian Institute of Art & Design, New Delhi. Snehanshu is one of Professor Gupta's former students at SPA and was part of the research students group on Professor Gupta's Jaisalmer field trip.

Moderator: Anisha Shekhar Mukherji, Conservation Architect, Author and Visiting Faculty at S.P.A. Delhi.

Panelists: Prof. Apoorvanand, Dept. of Hindi, University of Delhi; Prof. Ayesha Kidwai, Centre for Linguistics, Jawaharlal Nehru University; and Dr. Karthick Narayanan, Linguist and researcher

Moderator: Prof. Anita Rampal, Convenor, IIC Sectoral Policy Group on Education
 

Speakers: Amitabh Sinha, Deputy Editor, The Indian Express; Srinivas Krishnaswamy, Founder Trustee and Chief Functionary (CEO), Vasudha Foundation; and Dr. Manish Kr. Shrivastava, Associate Director, Earth Science and Climate Change, TERI

Moderator: Shri Ravi Agarwal, Founding Director, Toxics Link

At COP29 in Baku, Azerbaijan, India expressed its displeasure that the focus of the climate talks is on mitigation and not enabling less developed countries to take measures for mitigation. However, if recent reports are to be believed, India has improved its Climate Risk Index (CRI) from 7th in 2019 to 22nd in 2022, implying the country is in a better place now with regard to mitigation. While there is a buzz around climate change, the issue and its impacts are perceived and understood differently by communities. The discussion is an attempt to inform citizens about the science of climate change, its impacts and our preparedness.

(Collaboration: Toxics Link)