what is today for tomorrow

a naxalite training camp in Central India 

"they have lost their land"
said a feeble voice
the villagers of Mardana...
eaten up by a large dam
that gives us electricity

Mardana heart of india -from google earth 22°10'36.87" N  75°49'10.15" E

"its so irritating" the feeble voice said
so much fertile land...such fertile land
the villagers of Mardana...
eaten by a large dam
that feeds us glory

snap shot from a nba protest rally

back home to face book
the verdict on Binayak Sen
the true fighters of today
imprisoned by us
and our addiction to progress

"they did not even give us a hearing in the court"
the feeble voice said
the villagers of Mardana...
eaten by a large dam
and alien notions of justice

from Mardana to Chhattisgarh
the march of the nation state
the growing death of citizenship
eaten by a large dam
that nourish our sense of power

chicken stew and christmas for dinner
"i don't want to talk about it" the feeble voice said
the villagers of Mardana...
eaten by a large dam
that echos our silence

old harsud one entire town once loved here Photo by Ravisha Mall

Iraqi origin Al Saidi Hassan, performed ADAM FEET,

Sunday, April 6

a much deffered post

the performance happened on February 28, 2008 during Delhi-based Curated by Marta Jakimowicz, the exhibition was entitled as "The Mechanism of Motion".


photo credit - artmaharaj

In ADAM FEET, Al Saidi Hassan tried to raise issues of fragility, hostility and vulnerability related to the Freedom in Art in the contemporary Art scenario that prevails in post-colonial India. The performance was aimed at challenging the growing intolerance for the diversity of positions on a particular issue, even in the circles of the artists.

Using the performance as a medium of expression, Al Saidi, a member of the Progressive Artists Group, made an effort to articulate the concerns of those artists who are kept at margins and who often go unheard. It also asserts the right of artists to live a life characterized with dignity, equality and justice.

After being forced to conform orders of 'the other' and also being denied the right to air his voice as he desired, Al Saidi, the rebellious artist, decided to make his own contribution to the Art Freedom, in support of M.F.Hussain episode. .

Al Saidi removed his shoes and then entered Anant Gallery, walking on the black- grey Rajsthani stone pavement; he stopped standing in front of many cameras which were fixed on his naked feet; then he was asked to draw with black markers, both of his feet and put his name and signature there. Then he was asked to repeat the same procedure with regard to the second step. He was further asked to do the same, making it as bigger as the ADAM FEET, in a prepared sketch book but was not allowed to do more than what was ordered. Al Saidi found the whole exercise very boring and repeated the phrase around the outline of his drawn feet: For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain, For M.F.Hussain… Finally, he was asked to come on the microphone and pronounce his name. He was not permitted to utter a single word except that. It was followed by the order: "Please Take Your Shoe and Go Back to your Place".

For Al Saidi, the lack of freedom at the Vivian Sundram Documentary Interact Performance made the latter a clone of: 'The US Artist Fantasy in Vivian Artistic Philosophy', designed to rule the scenario in the exhibition. "I am a comedian target and was forced to join Action against another comedian, in taking side with self-censorship by removing my drawing from the sketchbook. Thus, I am always ready to give the M.F.Hussain case an embrace even though he enjoys security in the Arabia Filics (Dubai)and have "Al Dorado Life Style" as a refugee in exile while there is nobody to protect me or support me in my struggle for my survival as an artist in India, says the Iraqi artist. He further describes the Interactive Vivan Performance as "unfortunate" because it did not allow him to give a free opinion in support of Hussain.

Through the ADAM FEET, Al Saidi made the point that it was drawings and names of artists which lent a colour of sacredness to the Vivian Sketch Book. By the same logic, he questions what was being practiced at the Vivan Performance as it also tantamount to denying the artists the freedom and space to express in the way they wanted.

As there is no public explanation; I feel no safe to my work in his hand. Also, I do not know to which collector or European Museum our work he will sell to; which is different from drawing my feet on the gallery pavement; and I found it genuinely valid as no one can carry the pavement with him-only Saddam Hussain during the 1992 Kuwait invasion.

"I felt in peace in ADAM FEET performance because it symbolised origin of us all, and also because my performance was not motivated by any politico-capital interest", says Al Saidi. A colonial mindset seems to lurk beneath the contemporary Indian art culture. He accuses the mindset to try to keep 'others' silent in. He wonders that such praxis are still in vogue despite the fact that all of us come into existence as a result of the multiple of intermixing among origins, ethnicities, races and classes.

Al Saidi said on the occasion: "I know what I am doing. I am not stealing or confusing art. Though my idiom is different, I also am protesting and in the process, I am not masking action or manipulating the motivation, to communicate a higher truth, regarding the conceptual bankruptcy of the political culture and ideology". He is of the opinion that it is this Racist Culture which is instrumental in perpetuating bad living condition of many artists who are left on the margin of galleries as they do get hardly get someone to buy their artworks. Ironically, it coincides with the boom in the domestic market.

Al Saidi's anger as symbolized in ADAM FEET heightens the sense of survival crisis which pervades the circle of non-elite artists. Is it sane in this backdrop to hold only the Political Right responsible for incidents which bear similarity to the Hussain episode? One should recall justice for the trauma; the fundamental purpose of ADAM FEET.

--------
rahul bhattacharya

Joint Secretary
Performers Independent
-------------
let the river flow

Art History - Pedagogy - Vision : Conversing with Prof Shivaji Panniker

 "To be frank I am not fascinated by media itself, what are you communicating through the media is more important, so I am not much over bowled by mediumistic things. I am more eager about ground level collaborations, artists going to the people…and that have been happening since sometime. It is not like new media is going to revolutionize the society; Internet is not going to give you food…right?"

Rahul Bhattacharya (R.B) interviews Prof Shivaji Panniker (S.P): art critic/historian and the H.O.D Department of art History, MS University of Baroda- Early 2007 

 R.B- About two years ago the M.A (Art Criticism) specialization has been dissolved, but for over two decades it was the only specialization of its kind in India, can you map out the students from this department who has gone out to fully function as art critics.

S.P- The division between art history and art criticism is artificial and that is why we decided to do away with them. I think art criticism as a course started from an urge some to have art history closer to contemporary practice. Yes of course students would be having a greater exposure to pre- modern art, but in terms of real practice, no one expected any mean difference between students specializing in art history, or criticism.

                See one can drop names; there is no doubt that this department has been very important to many people who are in the field today, but personally I feel to claim each of them as a product of our department….; a department provides a platform, if you want names well one can site Chaitanya, Anshuman, Sanjay Mallick, Sisla, to Suresh Jayram ….names are all around, Preeta Nair, she may not be doing art criticism, but very seriously involved inn art history.

R.B.- I was trying to focus on criticism in particular.

S.P - See Roobina (Karode) for instance, when she was in the department, she was more into pre- modern art, so her interest in art criticism developed outside the department.  Then somebody like Chaitanya, claiming Chaitanya for the department will be unfair. He had a very close association with Gulam Sheik, and that is the platform from where he began his involvement ; this the department cannot claim.  His association with Gulam Sheik,s family was very important which got him involved with people like Vivan Sundaram and Gita Kapur, and to many others in the field. Something like this probably (at that time) the department could not provide. Then he was in Bombay, there he was an important art critic, then he went abroad and now he is curating large shows. Also take example like Georgina Madox who has been writing regularly on art, she is our B.A graduate and then also there is Vidya Sivadas.

                But then you can’t actually demand work from people, you can only lend certain possibilities. Moreover in the last five six years the department has been an important resource center for various foreign students researching on contemporary Indian art.

R.B - The reason why I asked you that question is, is as someone who has just started off being an art critic as his bread and butter occupation, when I looked around and tried to locate in the batches who have passed out of the department in the last five years or so, I cant find anyone who is currently functioning and working as an full time art critic.

S.P - Which are the known names in the field of art criticism…apart from Gita Kapur, who else will you name?

R.B - Roobina Karode is there, Nancy Adajania is there, Ranjit Hoskote is there.

S.P - Yes these are important names, but there are so many others who are writing. Sanjay Mallick is writing for the Delhi Art Gallery, Ashrafi Bhagat has just done her PhD, she is writing in Chennai, then there is Chitrabhanu who is also writing, they are all students from here na?

                They may not be such big names like Gita Kapur or something like that.  Then there is also each individual’s tendency to guard himself or herself from doing too much. However Ranjit Hoskote and Nancy Adajania seem to have an urge to do more and more work.  Then there is also Martha Jakimowicz; I think a lot of it has to be left to the individual. It is not necessary that Baroda art history department has to have everything, I don’t know whether there are people exploring all the possibilities and where are the avenues. Say Art India Magazine…where has it generated space for new writers? Although one has to admit that a large platform exists there, it is also difficult to push oneself, moreover how much can one generate, you may repeat a bit, but it is not good to repeat all the time.

                A student who passes out, they have to start their career somewhere or the other, there is nothing like a perfect choice, they might even be unsure as to whether they want to be in academics or an art critic or something like that. It is only Chaitanya, or Georgina or Vidya who went directly into art criticism; other had some kind of a job or the other.

                People are not very productive, they are hesitant to articulate their ideas, many students have shown promises to come out as important art critics, and they have done good dissertations on contemporary art then somehow they get lost. Then they also know that that they have to cope up with looking after the interests of the artists, the gallery or even the publisher, and they don’t want to give a sold out feeling about themselves. But then we also have people like Nirali Lal who is working with Saffron and have been writing on artists. I think the department serves the purpose of providing fine professionals to the art industry and I don’t think there is an onus of producing art critics only.

                                                                                                                           

R.B - With Bodhi coming to the department and doing something almost like a campus recruitment, I remember some years ago the within the department there was a proposal for a specialization in Art Management, you think there is space within the department for training students about the commercial aspects of art? There is no pedagogical input on this aspect of the industry.

S.P - No, there is an art management elective it has just been introduced. The specialization idea was introduced before my headship and it seems that it has fallen through somewhere in the clearance stage. It’s a good idea definitely, but somehow I do not feel I am equipped to take it up. You need a lot of resource people to run a course like that, in India they are still hard to find. And also I am not sure that we should concentrate on producing art administrators, I think that should be part of management institutions. I am not looking down on the management people, we would accommodate them where ever it is possible, if some body approaches us for our assistance and help like the Bodhi Art Gallery, but I don’t think we are specialized enough to have a course on art management, we just don’t have the management expertise. Moreover our interest is not to produce managers, our interest is academic. Of course we do not stop anybody who wants to take up a dissertation topic or undertake research on these lines.

R.B - There is another question and it pertains to the medium of writing, primarily the department trains students to write in mediums like articles/research papers and books, which are published on paper and related media. However there are now new mediums of writing like blogs, or web based writing in particular, the change in media demands significant changes in the structuring of language, and even understanding the size of an article. These changes are demanded by how the medium governs how people read and what is the resultant attention span and things like that, like it is not good to give an article, which is an infinite vertical scroll. As technological shifts take over the students after passing out will be confronting this new medium more and more. Do you think there is a need for a pedagogical intervention?

S.P - The thing is that we have to be very clear that there is no given format, whatever be the kinds of writing assignments given to the students, it is entirely up to the student concerned how to conceive it, how to write it. We just need a head and tail, we need a point, it is not that anything will go, we do insist on some kind of coherence, some kind of structure, sub-headings and things like that. We are not training for a specific requirement of website writing, feature writing, etc. in the process the students should be equipped, that is my belief. As a professional one should learn how to function within restrictions. Even if I am writing for any art journal, I will be given a word limit, and I have to confine myself within that.  I think that it is better if people should learn to write to the point.

R.B - This question comes from my discussion with Himanshu (Desai) regarding the paper he presented in this years seminar. What I understood to be the core of this paper is an attempt to reorient our focus on new media art. In art history departments one is only trained to engage with old media as per as materiality is concerned.  Are there any directions towards engaging with it in terms of greater curriculum focus?

S.P - We have not made a concentrated effort to cope up with the mediumistic shifts, we still do not have an archive through which one can expose oneself to works done in new media. But there are questions like where to get it? And the faculty we are located is also old media oriented, like we don’t have a department that specializes in alternative art practices, so there is a sense of lagging behind. Personally I don’t have a specific interest in mediumistic shifts I tend to look at art more in terms of ideas and language. We do try to get art historians like Gita Kapur or people like that who have a greater focus on mediumistic shifts.

There is no concentrated effort to document or teach whether it is in the art history side or the practical side, but we generally talk about it, in my modern Indian art classes I try to historically lay it out. It is very difficult sitting in a place like Baroda to get everything here into the classroom…nearly impossible. There is also a question as to where do you accommodate new media art in the syllabus

To be frank I am not fascinated by media itself, what are you communicating through the media is more important, so I am not much over bowled by mediumistic things. I am more eager about ground level collaborations, artists going to the people…and that have been happening since sometime. It is not like new media is going to revolutionize the society; Internet is not going to give you food …right? And what percentage can access the net as per as India is concerned…it’s a very elite minority. So all those avant-garde notions with regard to the medium, I am quite skeptical about it...and it should never be that if you do this medium you would be automatically avant-garde or something. But I am sure some people are using it in a most effective way. 

Reading…un reading

Reading…un reading published by www.mattersofart.com 2007
Rahul Bhattacharya reads Sabrina’s ‘Fragments Of Fading Memories’ by Sabrina at the Art
Heritage as a site where one can locate challenges to contemporary skills of consumption and
analysis.
‘Fragments Of Fading Memories’ an exhibition of assemblages and collages by Sabrina at the
Art Heritage (Triveni Kala Sangam) showcases a body of work located between two very
attractive but (probably) misleading tropes, which almost premeditate our viewing. The tropes
referred here are those of the artist gender and her use of materials. Indeed most readings and
interpretation around Sabrina’s work assume a primal importance for these tropes. Of course
Sabrina can be looked at primarily through the category of a ‘female artist’ (or placed within
such an interpretational space), and the thematic nature of her work encourages one to see her
works through a ‘woman artist’s autobiographical mode) and establishes linkages with the kind
of narratives we have learnt to employ for artists like Frida Kahlo. It is also true that her rich and
diverse use of material provide an enchanting perching point of the viewer….from where an
‘entry’ into her works seem obvious.
At this moment let us pretend that Sabrina’s gender is invisible. (Even though one must admit
that analysis through Kantian hierarchies will lead to the body of works displayed at Fragments
Of Fading Memories being read as ‘feminine’). And conversations with the artist reveal that (by
and large) her use of materials is deeply incidental (but highly integral) to her practice. It comes
from her reaction to the ‘academic’ insistence on the ‘hand painted’ and that there is hardly ever
a symbolic association with materiality. Thus there is enough elbow space to squeeze out into the
realms of two (alter) tropes…to look into the concaves of her gender and the materials that she
uses and in such a temporarily suspended space try to reengage with the installation / collages
constructed by her.
Sensual, tranquil, vulnerable, fragile… were words that came to mind as one began an initial
engagement with Sabrina’s works. It is a relief to realize that there is no gender ‘intrinsically’
built into any of the above four sense categories. However at this juncture one is confronted with
certain methodological doubts… how does one deal with such personal readings of a body of
work in an era which is extremely hesitant about notions of ‘authorship’ ‘biographical’ and the
‘narrative’. The immediate context of this body of works provokes one into the bio-narrative
mode (2005, visit to Leh in a self declared peace and calmness rescue operation; her encounters
with vastness, tranquility and other such sense metaphors) Indeed one can look at ‘objects’
constructed by the artist as montage re-memberings of her Leh experience. At least now the
artist’s gender has ceased to matter (a significant break within the biographical mode?); her
camera (may have) shot Ladakh through the lens of a transgender tourist, traveling out…
searching answers to questions dying within.
Of course one learns to connect ‘montage re-memberings’ with Dadaist techniques especially in
the manner in which Sabrina uses her (mixed) media,” methods of combination, accumulation
and chance relations” (as observed in Rubina Karode’s catalogue essay, unedited, unpublished
version. However it is also possible to realize that the process through which ‘accumulation’ is
trans-montaged into ‘combination’ is done in an internationality ridden process, and the resultant
‘chance encounters’ just do not have the same ideological significance in Sabrina’s artistic
practice as it enjoys in Dada-Surrealist ideological frameworks.
The artist’s ‘found object bank’ is a crucial point of entry into her works. Objects ‘just picked
up’, memorabilia, discarded objects and ‘bought objects’ are headings under which one may be
able to archive Sabrina’s object bank….bought objects forming a sizeable part of this imagined
archive. It is conventional to underplay the section of ‘bought objects’ in an artist’s object bank
(even though painters ‘can’ – obviously – buy paints and brushes), as though a structural void
will be created if we start saying “this artists buys objects and sticks them on the surface”. It
seems to be more appropriate to assume that he/she has certain personal relationship with the
objects. Somehow a twig picked up because (it probably) engaged the artist aesthetically seemed
to be capable to carrying more cultural capital than a small piece of something the artist has
bought (picked up through a financial transaction) even though (possibly) the reasons were the
same (aesthetic engagement). Similarly a fabric having a memory significance (associatiable
with childhood/marriage or other social metaphor) seem capable of carrying more cultural capital
than a piece of fabric that the artist just ‘bought’ from the market.
Sabrina challenges the autobiographical in her works by blurring boundaries between found and
bought objects, using them ‘equally’ towards the construction of her object-images. [It must be
admitted that there are pockets within Sabrina’s body of work, which deploy polemic usage of
‘personal objects’]. Sometimes, it may be useful to bypass a direct engagement with materials
used and concentrate on the ‘gestural’ that inform the construction of her visuality. Gestural as
an analytical category is primarily used in the context of painting, performance, drawing or
sculpture… rarely used to engage with object installations constructed out of found objects and
digitally manipulated imagery. Sabrina’s object images are primarily constructed out of ‘acts’
like sewing, sticking and cutting. These techniques and their possibility of encoding gestures
play an important constructional role in Sabrina’s art and the nature of lines and patterns that
bind her works Formally (here one is not dealing with lines and patterns in the images, materials
and fabrics used). It is these gestures that are at the performative core of Sabrina’s practice…
deeply informing how the artist visually (re) constructs her image and object bank into
enchanting, fragile image objects.
Even though over the decade Sabrina has struggled with the technical challenge of attaching
objects, images, fabrics to surfaces… very often a lot of her artistic energy taken up by the need
to introduce some degree of permanence to the (sometimes) extremely fragile objects used,
Sabrina has chosen to stay within the realm of the ephemeral. The ‘decision’ to not work within
the realms of the ‘archival’ has to be seen as a certain resistance to investment/ market demands
for everlasting and permanent. It is a pleasant change in our schizophrenic times when artists
imagine and celebrate the ephemeral be works produced on archival paper.
In fact, initially it seemed problematic that Sabrina’s brittle, fragile, ephemeral object-images
had to be housed within glass frames to make them (quasi) permanent …fit for exhibition
display. However, when one got to see her works post framing, it seemed a new semiotic
dimension had got (unwittingly?) layered on her works… fragility encased and protected within
glass boxes. Suddenly one gets reminded of her visit to Leh and her discovery of / fascination
with the pristine protected spaces offered by Buddhist monasteries… her repeated use of the
ovular form (as a symbol of enveloping and hence protection….).
The last observation is of course completely arbitrary.

Critics Essay for Khoj 2006 Performance Art Residency

The residency details are available on http://www.khojworkshop.org/project/1275
"It is easy to gather a crowd in India what really matters is what one does with them" - Diane Torr

At one level, there is the agency of the curatorial project, however there is an intangible limit to this agency. Somehow the energy that invigorates experimental curation simultaneously undermines the curatorial agency. "Experimental", because it plays with the urge to define, consciously making an effort to loosen the structure, making room for the curation to take its own form, and perhaps develop a critique on the intentionality of the original curatorial idea. The structure of programming of KHOJ workshops and residencies, have over the years upheld the curatorial practice of programming with a definite agenda; while structuring the program loosely enough to ensure a free space of operation for the participating artists.
The 2006 Performance art residency was curated with the intention to bring together various practices within "Performance" and "live art" and create a potpourri of talents, aiming to re-energise and redefine the concept and practice of "Performance" in India. Nalini Ramani, Rumanna Hussain, Sharmila Samant, Pushpamala, Monali Meher and Anita Dube have been recurrent names when one talks about "performance art in India" there is a need to discover new talent, renew energies.
The objectives of the residency demanded a substantial involvement on the part of the Indian artists, and engaging them with international artists coming from different understandings of Performance. To be able to pursue this direction, the residency was expanded to include seven artists; four international: Diane Torr (Glasgow/NYC), Paulo Nazareth (Brazil), WuYe (Shanghai), Oreet Ashery (London), all belonging to cultures which have a strong tradition in Performance Art. The three Indian artists in the residency were; Anusha Lall (New Delhi), Sonia Khurana (New Delhi) and Sushil Kumar (Delhi). Each artist came from diverse trajectories, and each through their practice worked towards opening up newer spaces within the dominant trends of "Performance".
Mapping the Artists
Diane Torr is a performance artist, writer, director and educator who developed her career in New York over a period of 25 years. In the past three years, she has taken up residence in Glasgow, where she was invited to teach an interdisciplinary course at Glasgow School of Art, and to work with the company Mischief-La Bas, Glasgow, in a new devised production, Painful Creatures. In teaching her gender transformation workshops, Diane has worked extensively in the gay and trans communities in New York, and Glasgow. Over the years she has evolved into a global drag king ambassador.
Sonia Khurana, is a Delhi based artist whose work occupies the intangible cross disciplinary space between video and performance. Over the years she has emerged to be one of faces contemporary cutting edge work in video. A video artist whose practice has always been focused on her body, this was her entry into the performance residency. Sonia's works are increasingly informed by the encounters with her own class, gender and sexual identities.
Oreet Ashery is a London based artist. Her work encompasses live art, video, sound and photography and has shown internationally in various contexts. Oreet is interested in the slippage between art and life and further mutations of current art practices. Her work uses politics of the body in relation to culture and location. She works across a range of media including digital video and image manipulation as well as live art, writing and Internet-based projects. Ashery's work deals with identity, and more specifically, the relationship between personal politics and social politics where the two merge, contradict and intersect.
Paulo Nazareth based in the town of Melo in Brazil, carries the fire of Latin American Performance Art. A radical new generation performance artist, Paulo is the new generation Brazilian performance artist, working and redefining a style first mastered by Danniel Saraiva.. His body of work is an ironic commentary on schizophrenia of lower middle class existence in Brazil. Using a calculated impromptu approach, Paulo uses re- contextualised gestures as his principle medium.
As a dancer who has trained in, and has been performing Bharatnatyam, Anusha Lall has had complex dialogue with the orthodoxies that control the discipline. She has also trained in contemporary European dance, once again negotiating with the classical orthodoxies embedded in it. Anusha's journey into Performance has been through these negotiations with the disciplinary orthodoxies within various realms of the Performing Arts. Over the last few years Anusha has moved on experiment with new media performance art trying to carve out a space of "greater artistic freedom".
Sushil Kumar's has been a long running radical voice in the realm of Performance Art in Delhi. Taking inspiration from absurdist philosophy, Sushil takes great delight in nonsense, at the same time successfully playing in the realms of our histories and memories. Claiming a subaltern position within the mainstream artist circle, Sushil Kumar lives his ideology performing in the "theater of the absurd".
Wu Ye is one of the new names coming out of Shanghai's performance art circle. Wu works outside the deeply "political" expressions of Performance Art in China. Earning his bread as a graphic designer, he struggles as an upcoming but understated Performance artist. He uses his body and the medium of video primarily to express his heterosexual anxieties. His expressions are "still" and poetic.
The Artists in Residence
It has been a challenge to map seven artists, with such diverse approaches to artistic practice, and each possessed of a strong personality. In this period of six weeks, they exchanged ideas, collaborated in workshops and explored the city. Three city based artists helped, there were visits to the qwali evening at the Nizamuddin darga, Sufi nights at the Lodhi Gardens, and various such rich cultural explosions that exemplify the late winter culture-scape of Delhi.
In a six-week international residency, it is important to introduce a system, which ensures that the artists coming from different backgrounds find a working chemistry, and get a feel of each other's practice, from the point of view of the in-house programming, it was also important to impart a feel of the various strands of Performance Art as they have taken shape in India.
In the introductory meeting a consensus was generated that each of the participating artists would lead workshops at a pace the group felt comfortable with. The workshops were essentially done in the mode of the workshop coordinator doing pre-deciding improvisation based exercises, which were either team base or individual, and helped the participants to grasp each other's artistic flavors. The first three weeks witnessed one workshop each lead by Diane Torr, Anousha Lall, and Oreet Ashery. Beyond that point the workshops became redundant, having served their purpose as stimulator's facilitating the initial exchange of ideas and personality clues.
By the third week of the residency, the resident artists had already begun to work on their concepts/ideas around the work they would be doing in the residency, and how they would be structuring the display on the open studio day.
Wu Ye and Paulo had been busy walking around the city and video documenting, primarily concentrating on people and public spaces. By the end of the second week Wu had decided that his work would be centered on his video experience of people and the city, for Wu this residency was his first venture outside China and he was looking forward to articulate his feeling of being present in this strange city (with which he was increasingly falling in love with), and yet not really belonging. At that juncture Wu had decided against doing an actual performance, and wanted to primarily present a video work using his body as a metaphor.
Sonia has been a leading video artist, who has increasingly used her body as a site for articulating metaphors. Being a part of a Performance art residency generated a desire to use her body as a live medium. Humour and self have always been an intricate inspiration for Sonia. Sonia had not been able to come to KHOJ and participate in all the meetings and discussions, which had generated various degrees of unhappiness among the other participating artists. Sonia wanted to play on this and work around the theme of presence and absence. Sonia was pursuing another idea, that of playing a bag lady outside an up market place, getting a friend to video-document the performance and play the footage on the open day.
Anusha wanted to carry forward her experimentation combining performance and new media. By the second week, among all the participants Anusha, had the most clearly formulated notion about the display she wanted to put up. She wad already shot a rendition of the Japanese "dance of womb" (by Lee Swee Keong, an Malaysia based artist) and was deciding a display strategy wherein the recording of the dance would be sound edited to traditional Sufi music and reflect-projected on the ceiling. Instead of performing in the traditional sense, Anusha takes great delight in creating sites wherein the audience is made to perform (and in that sense her work has begun to occupy the transient space between live and space art). Anusha wanted to design her space in a manner that that the image of the audience would be caught by a camera and transferred on to a screen and transferred on a screen (via a DVD projector) and each person entering the space would get to see the images of the people visiting the space before, thus being (suddenly) being made aware that he/she would be viewed by the next person entering thereby imposing the performative onto the audience. She also wanted to capture and simultaneously project the audience as she/he was leaving the room creating an illusion that that the person is entering the room just at the point when she/he is actually leaving.
Diane had decided to carry forward work of being the drag king ambassador she however let the pedagogic in her take over and, was experiencing concern as to how language divide coming between the artists in residence and a sustained intellectual interchange/exchange, borrowing an idea from Oreet, Diane decided to get a table tennis board, and develop a non-hierarchical version of ping-pong, thereby making the table tennis board as a site for meeting and exchange. In continuation with her role as a drag king ambassador, Diane had begun conducting Drag king workshops in the National school of Drama. For the open studio day Diane wanted to choreograph a "chain dance", involving the people from the neighborhood of KHOJ (Khirkee village and extension) whom she wanted to train over a fifteen-day workshop.
Sushil, keeping up to his radical absurdist stream of thought, refused to plan meticulously in detail, even by the third week “I will do anything was his standard reply to any body asking him as to what work he wanted to execute. However if one spent more time with him one would get to know that he had an anarchic act coming up. Sushil had decided to perform as a temple shoe keeper, collect the shoes of everyone who came in as an audience on the open day, and then eventually to suddenly up turn the shoe rack, and generate a chaos leaving the standard art viewing audience crawling and hunting through a disarrayed piles of shoes trying to retrieve their lost ones. Sushil wanted to execute three such radical interventions, however the rest two he was yet to develop.
For Paulo visiting Delhi and India was a rare experience, he had never been outside Brazil before, and he could sense that this cultural exposure would have a significant impact on how he viewed intervention. In his work for the open day, Paulo wanted to create a room for himself, constructing a utopia where he would live and work. Right at the onset Paulo was clear about the specificities, he wanted to construct his utopia with. In an attempt to communicate his own lived ambiance, Paulo desired to construct his space with some lime paint, a hammock, a radio and certain items of daily use. Within that space Paulo wanted to build in a narrative sealing up the rooms window with ply board, Paulo wanted to structure his performance around using a rudimentary cutting tool...and through the evening of the open day breaking the ply sealing open.
Oreet wanted to carry forward her long running engagement with the Jewish masculine identity(s). Her research and interaction with Shuddha from Raqs media-collective, informed her about Jews in India, including the mentioning of Sarmad the Saint. Oreet had decided to base her performance around her journey as she hoped to explore and discover more about this fleeting community its legends, its saintly hero, and the questions around their identities. As is characteristic about Oreet's approach to work one could sense that it would be very methodically worked out with a great attention to research and would be located within the realms of cultural identity and cultural anxieties.
As the third week drew to a close it soon became apparent that a new work mode was emerging, a mode more focused into giving shape to what the mind had abstractly conceived in the preceding weeks. However even within the work mode there were differences in approach and how the artists showed their various approaches between process and finish.
The kind of display Anusha wanted to execute ensured that she was neck deep in her pre production mode right from the word go. A lot of what she wanted to execute was outside her domain of technical expertise. Naturally her work began with researching expertise and technology, on the other hand she idea was also trying to device means to solve the most nagging technological problem in her construction...the projection illusion of the audience leaving as they were entering. Eventually she had to leave the idea and concentrated completely on getting the project in place.
Paulo's approach was more process oriented and he spent his days devising strategies for newer kinds of interventions. Paulo started writing a pamphlet through which he wished to express his meeting with India. For Paulo India was this land that was so different yet so close to his country. Among the foreign artists, it was only Paulo who treated India with so much familiarity quickly realizing the overtness of the differences in language and food habits. Of course there was also the historical accident of Columbus discovering the Americas in his quest to find an alternative sea route to the fabled India. Paulo wanted the pamphlet to be printed in Portuguese, Hindi and English. Soon the text was finalized, and the process of translating and designing the pamphlet began.
Oreet by then was neck deep in research on Jewish communities in India. She discovered a colonial period synagogue, and visited it. Faced with conservative apprehensions about a middle-aged woman touring India alone made Oreet feel like an outsider in a cultural space she had anticipated being an automatic insider. So I visited the synagogue with her, disguised as a Jew and performing the role of her husband. While performing my wife Oreet soaked in the easy acceptance. As the week passed Oreet began to find more material on Sarmad. Evenings were spent going through the Urdu narratives aided by Anusha and Sushil. Oreet also discovered Sarmad's tomb and was pleasantly surprised to find it is still visited by many worshipers. By then she had also started being very clear as to how she would stage her performance.
Wu Ye too by then had begun to be to walk round town with his video camera and locate the spaces he would be using in his work. Sonia was enacting her "bag lady" outside PVR Saket as she was fine tuning strategies of executing her display strategies. Diane conducted drag queen workshops in the National school of Drama; she had also put up posters in the neighborhood of Khirkee advertising the dance workshop leading up to the performance. The posters generated a lot of excitement it offered the exotic opportunity to attend a dance workshop conducted by a white lady culturally it also offered the possibility to step into the "other". Very soon the workshops started, very few people actually showed up, and the workshop threatened not to take off. It is at point Diane decided to change her strategy, and work only with children. Using the inroads made in to the community through KHOJ's community outreach program, the workshop was re-formulated to work with kids valuable days were lost and Diane needed to speed up her training mode. Sushil spend this time developing two more ideas and trying to source a temple shoe rack for him. Uncharacteristically Sushil wanted to do something involving a heavy use of technology and was trying to generate a self-awareness as to how he wanted to execute his concept.
The Open Studio Day
The open studio day was scheduled for Saturday March 25, 2006. Positioned as the show case climax for the residency program, KHOJ's open studio day has over the years become a much-awaited event in the city's culturescape. The performance art residency's open day even more so as there has been in a lot of latent interest in the concept and practice of Performance Art in India without there being adequate opportunities to engage with cutting edge Performance art. By the time the open day approached there was already a significant shift in the intentionality behind the Performance residency.
Initially conceived as a residency which would rejuvenate the practice of "Live"-"Body" Art in India, by the time of the Open day, KHOJ had re adjusted it aims and was looking at the Open Studio Day as an event through which one would attempt to explore prevalent notions of Performance Art encapsulating the shift from pure body art to utilizing mediatic interventions to create a platform for audience interactions within the peripherals of 'body communications'. This shift was primarily because of the encounters with the resident artists, who were by and large at a point wherein they were dissatisfied/concerned with the manner in which Performance art as a discipline was being formulated and were committed to re engage with it in a completely different manner.
The following are the list of list of Performances lined up for the Open Day:
OREET ASHERY -Imagining Sarmad
ANUSHA LALL-Homes 4 the Absent + Blind Date
SUSHIL KUMAR-Lesson 1... Lesson 2... Human Chain
DIANE TORR - TTT Adventure + Pass Along + Almost Hidden
WUYE -My Religion
SONIA KHURANA- "Don't Touch me when I start to feel safe" + Volga + Bag Lady
PAULO NAZARETH- Pure Water for Secular Men / Agua Potauel Para Homeng Profands / Saada Paani Dharmnipreksh Admiyon Ke Liye + What Do i Make With India / O Que Faco Con A India / Main India Se Kya Karta Hoon + What India Made Do With Me / O Que A India Faz Comigo / India Mere Se Kya Karta Hai
A lot of initial conceptualizations were modified substantially, where as certain new ideas had taken roots. Sushil Kumar had developed two more ideas, Lesson 1, which mimicked a punishment given to lower castes and students in India, which involved crouching in the "chicken posture" and hopping a distance, crouched in that posture. He also developed the idea for a "Human Chain", which involved the artist sitting nude on a chair with his boots on his lap, there was a chair positioned in front of the artist which stood as an invite for any member of the audience to come and sit on it and establish visual contact with Sushil. There were two video cameras attached to two television monitors facing diagonally outwards into the audience. Sushil and the person seated in front of him held hands and looked into each others eyes, each time one of them blinked, the chain was declared broken and the person had to get up and make way for another member of the audience to come, sit and take the chain forward.
The open day evening began with Paulo enacting his performance "Pure Water for Secular Men / Agua Potauel Para Homeng Profands / Saada Paani Dharmnipreksh Admiyon Ke Liye" the performance involved Paulo walking down the narrow lanes of Khirkee with a wooden water container tied to his chest and armed with some glasses he walked around distributing clean drinking water free to people. As usual Paulo evoked a strange sight, and baffled his audience with his play of contexts. As Paulo finished his walk and returned to the KHOJ building, Sushil began his Lesson 1, from outside the Sai Baba Mandir, through the lane leading up to KHOJ. Sushil attracted a huge crowd as he took up the physically exhausting task mimicking and parodying the demeaning punishment. Sushil's first performance smoothly flowed into the next one (Lesson 2), as he entered the building of the KHOJ studios, he asked the members of the audience to remove their shoes, and putting them on the shoe rack borrowed from a temple. Before people could realize what was happening, Sushil had upturned the rack and sent the shoes tumbling down in chaos.
By this time an unprecedented number of people had gathered inside KHOJ, and the gates had to shut for the purpose of crowd control slowly the rest of the Performances got under way. Diane Torr's TTT Adventure, was designed entirely an audience interactive performance involving a as a Table Tennis board which was kept for the members of the audience to come and play a new version of the game which involved people running around the table and playing a non hierarchical no win no loss version of ping pong. Her "Pass Along" along was the showcasing of the dance workshop conducted with the children from the neighbourhood of Khirkee, this was staged just outside the KHOJ gate and involved the children dancing to a song of their choice. The dance had been evolved through a collaborative process, wherein each participant had evolved a set of steps and taught them to the rest of the group.
Paulo's "What Do I Make With India / O Que Faco Con A India / Main India Se Kya Karta Hoon + What India Made Do With Me / O Que A India Faz Comigo / India Mere Se Kya Karta Hai" was setup in one of the upstairs studio spaces, and was a fantasy recreation of his visit to India living, working meeting and experiencing. It was the most open-ended of all the performances; anyone could come in and interact with Paulo as he enacted "living" inside his installation sleeping on the hammock, craving away the sealed window, or just adjusting the things around. Wu Ye's piece for the evening was primarily a video. "My Religion" showed the artist dressed in an white (monkish) flowing garment, standing in various spaces in the city, suddenly Wu would disappear from the frame as if he was never present. It was an extremely poetic take on presence absence and identity. Later into the evening he did a naked performance inspired by his experience at the Khirkee Masjid, however the performance did not really hold because the strain of being tied to ropes and suspended in space was too much physical strain.
Oreet's "Imagining Sarmad" was a two show performance based on the stories of Sarmad the Saint and his lover, a young Hindu man called Habichand. The performance was an adaptation of the story told in eight letters written by Sarmad to his imaginary sister. In the performance the artist lay in the middle of the space on a box and "embody" the story through drawing, clothes and other props, whilst eight people from the audience are sat around me and read the eight letters. The performance was very strong in its narrative and formal engagement, both the shows left the audience spellbound. Sonia's "Don't touch me when I start to feel safe" was staged in a partitioned room and also involved a video camera with a projector. Sonia sat behind one partition and as people entered her space, they could see her through the projection, she could be seen sitting engaged with herself, and periodically coming out carrying a paper in hand, the paper was an invitation for members of to come join her in her room for a glass of wine and some light chat. For Sonia it has a significant performance, the first time she crossed the divide and actually performed live. The Bag Lady video played in a small television screen in a passage outside Sonia's studio space.
Anusha's installation was so big in scale that it could not be accommodated inside the KHOJ building. Luckily her studio was right next-door and big enough to accommodate the structure necessary to execute the installation. One entered through a narrow circular space, and came across 15-inch monitors, showing all the residency artists doing a performance piece inside the constructed space. Then one would step into a big domed enclosure, where dance of womb Lee Swee Keong "dance of the womb" was reflected off a water container and projected on the dome. In front one could see a blue projection screen, and as one approached the exit door one could see a projection of their image projected on to the screen. It was a highly poetic construction of space primarily using video imagery, even if one notes that Anusha was not able to execute initial conception.
Dian's performance "Almost Hidden" was a subtle exploration of voyeurism,and the liminal erotic. The artist recreated the experience of the forbidden glance where a secret intimacy is publicly revealed, generates a fantasy in you that continues long after the car has passed over the flyover, and occupies your imagination as you travel along the highway.
Late into the evening the programming drew to a close, leaving us dazzled by all the crowd all the new articulations of Performance and for me it was a reminder of how much theory had to progress if one had to critically engage with such range of artistic practices.

for more details one can see http://khojstudios-performanceart2006.blogspot.in/

Rahul Bhattacharya

Report on: Colouring Outside the Lines:

        Held at KHOJ International Artist’s Association between 1^st to 7^th April 2006

The workshop was conceived and coordinated by Saba Qizilbash, an artist, and art educator with a long running engagement in community arts programming, in collaboration with KHOJ International Artist Association, which has over the years shown emerged as a key platform for promoting experimentation and exchange in contemporary art practice. Saba Qizilbash wants to develop ‘Colouring Outside the Lines’ as a model visual arts workshop series designed to pedagogically intervene, and introduce inter-cultural conflict management strategies between ‘demographies’ that have had a history of shared culture, yet live in a conflict torn present, which have resulted in minimum inter-cultural accessibility and creative exchange.

The first workshop of the series was framed as a weeklong collaborative residency, which brought together art students from Srinagar and Lahore to work on collaborative art projects at the Khoj Studios in Delhi. The workshop attempted to include artists from Kashmir within the frame of current processes of peace and creative exchange between the artist communities of Delhi and Lahore, and engage them in a progressive dialogue on contemporary issues in art, media created myths, stereotypes and preconceived images of the ‘other’. In the course of the workshop, issues surrounding identity, culture, demarcations and freedom were raised, hotly debated and eventually left open ended. Seven students from the School of Visual Arts, BNU, Lahore, were paired with five recent graduates of Institute of Fine Arts and Music, Srinagar. The two groups of students spent one week in Delhi sharing ideas, meals and living spaces.

As a workshop orientated towards the partnering of young art student communities through first hand communication and exchange, a critical evaluation of the workshop necessitates that one   engages with the pedagogical value of the intervention rather than be limited by the lure of judging the finished art works that were displayed on the open day.  As a pedagogical intervention the workshop faced certain critical challenges.  The two groups of students came from two very different kinds of art school backgrounds, and from very different age groups.

 The students from BNU Lahore were second year undergraduate students of a very elitist art college, exposed to a very contemporary definition of artistic practice, at an early stage of their art education they have been exposed to ‘new media art’, and have begun to understand art almost entirely as a ‘play’ within contextual frameworks.   The students from Kashmir on the other hand were post- graduate students exposed almost entirely to the traditional academic definition of artistic practice, and their art education has been centered on sharpening their skills in old media. It soon became evident that more than the cultural differences regional lines; the lines of differences were much sharper in the realms of class, exposure, and understanding of art.

From day one the differences were played out. Reflective of their training, the students of Institute of Fine Arts and Music, Srinagar, showed a keen interest in making paintings, collages and similar traditional mediums, the BNU students flashed ideas involving inter-disciplinary approaches - combining film, installations and performance art. The articulation of differences finally emerged in the portfolio sharing session in which questions on originality, contextuality and appropriation were raised. The Kashmiri students questioned: “How is it your art if you have used references of ready made objects and popular images?” this question emerged as the ‘keynote’ for the pedagogical intervention of the workshop.

Though it was clear right from the onset, that an in-depth understanding of such divergent approaches was something which could not be accomplish within a short week, but the ability to accept non-traditional modes of art, as ‘art’, and acknowledgement of the older academic approach as still being relevant, was definitely a step ahead. That set the platform towards developing an orientation in working collaboratively across ‘the lines’.

However, the workshop was framed so tightly around the Indo-Pak- Kashmir issues that a narrow understanding of conflict resolution marked nearly all the artworks produced in the course of the week. A simplistic use of colour symbology and a naïve understanding conflict and conflict resolution reflected in the work produced. Somehow one gets a feeling that Saba Qizilbash imagined that the aims of intercultural conflict management could be achieved simply by putting in two groups from diverse cultures together and pushing them towards working collaboratively.

Though this modus did succeed in generating important pedagogical dialogues art practices, it generated only a superficial understanding of the specific inter-regional conflict, which was the contextual location of the workshop. One can claim that the conflict resolution is beyond the narrow definition of politics, and that it can be achieved through strong ‘people to people’ contacts, however it is also easy to generate a ‘feel good’ seeing two groups of students working together and sharing fun. A critical engagement with the ‘value’ of the pedagogical intervention will be possible only if one maps the ‘take home quotient’.cross posted from : http://www.khojworkshop.org/node/2886

Report on ARABIAN NIGHT- Presented by Zuleikha Chaudhari and Performers at Work

By Roland Schimmelpfennig
Presented by Zuleikha Chaudhari and Performers at Work

Direction and Design: Zuleikha Chaudhari : Translation: Rajesh Tailang physical preparation and Instruction - Rashid Ansari Cast: Manish Choudhari, Mandakini Goswami, Jitender Kumar, Supriya Shukla, Sujith Shankar.

Venue KHOJ Studios

Funders: KHOJ International artists Association, Max Muller/ Bhavan

One of the most significant questions that come up when open tries to develop a critique for Zuleikha’s rendition of Arabian Nights by Roland Schimmelpfennig is to be able to locate the play in the programming structure of KHOJ. The last one-year has seen KHOJ concentrating and giving a lot of attention to Performance Art. KHOJ being an organization, which has its roots in experimental practices within fine Arts, one can contextulize its engagements with Performance art, as the discourse around performance has always claimed its origins from practices emerging from the avant-garde within visual arts. However, over the years KHOJ has very carefully chosen not to program around a generalized notion of Art, consciously choosing to program around practices in visual arts, considering it to be a much needed focus in its quest to challenge boundaries. Institutions and individuals, positioning themselves on the margins, often realize that ‘the edge’ often is an un-definable space and margins, and working with inter-cross disciplinary practices often lead the individual/institutions to cross disciplines in their own practices too.

When one sees a staging of an experimentavite play at the premises of KHOJ, one begins to question whether the agenda to explore boundaries from within the confines of visual arts has been expanded to include and support various ‘cutting edge practices’ across boundaries within the larger realm of artistic practice. However, Zuleikha Chaudhari renders the play more in the manner of an installation using the cast and set to transcend the descriptive category of theater. Therefore at the end of it one sees a theater artist, working in (essentially a ) visual arts space and both complimenting each other...helping each to transcend disciplinary frontiers.

The play as such (Performed on the 21 – 23 April, 2006) was an adaptation of Roland Schimmelpfennig’s Arabian Nights, a heavily loaded text greatly influensed by European readings of the oriental heat and sensuality, though Zuleikha’s rendition of the play subtantially subverts the Orientalist bias. The format of the script is centered on constructs of ‘laid down and available oriental woman’ who is there to be obtained by the ‘active mail’, provided the ‘HE’ goes through his assigned journeys, and encounters with ‘fantasy fate’.

The narrative revolves around five characters (two women, three men), a high-rise apartment building and the male gaze. Heat, water and brandy are the recurring motifs in this play about mystery, lust, love, agony, ecstasy and hallucinatory visions. However what really arrested me throughout my many viewings of Arabian Nights, is how the core narrative centers around an ancient story telling tradition about harems, jealousy, revenge, curse and redemption; yet attempts to contextualize it in a contemporary urban setting...not letting go of the ‘oriental fantasy’ that informs and inspires its root narrative.

What also intruged me is when the essentially ‘male’ script is used and appropriated by a ‘female’ director how she handles the   male gaze and sexualization of the female body.  Zuleikha does a brilliant job in subverting the male gaze without changing the script...but by using entirely formal devices. The gaze is still a motif of sexual desire but is stripped off its sensuality. However, am still not able to pinpoint at what point does the subversion of the gaze happen...does Zuleikha ride on the element of ‘torture’ that the script in-builds and formally exaggerates it in a manner that disallows it to settle in, and combines other formal devices? or is it through a different take all-together? The voyeurism is subverted within the narrative by the manner in which adultery is punished...without any empathy to whether it is intentional or not...perceived or real...in this play breaking sexual barriers lead to death.

Certain uses of formal devices stand out in the play.... first thing that struck me that there was very little acting in the traditional sense of it. The play is more choreographed than directed (in the manner theater defines direction). The play begins with a sanitized all white setting.... and gradually unfolds into the white being disturbed by the grime and sand, which the actors pick up in the course of the performance. This parallels the loss of sanity and the increase in the ‘muck’ that unfolds in the lives of the characters.   

Like all Zuleikha’s plays... this work is hyper pitched and seeks to maintain a (nearly) one and a half hour crescendo. The result is there is very little room for modulations, resulting in the ‘high’ tending to ‘plateau’ and become an extended flat. This necessarily put a lot of onus of modulation on the acting...requiring them to be high energy throughout...but still be very careful about how they pitch. As it is as an actor it must have been very difficult to employ the traditional modes of maintaining cues as Zuleikha consciously broke the ‘traditional’ links between actions and words...having the audience sitting so close to them. One must admit they did a brilliant job.

Poetic Terrosism

Performance art is a concept metaphor usually used to tag avant-garde/conceptual art which grew out of visual art practice and locates the body and space as the as the subject and the actual material for the artwork. Traditionally it is viewed as an interventionist challenge to Painting and Sculpture, and located in the realm of ephemeral artistic practices which resist the "commodity status" of art products. However Performance Art is also a resistant to main stream practices in theater, and has enacted the resistance through positing the performer as an artist (as against a character) and working in the margins/outside of the traditional understanding of plot or narrative and often actively subverting them.
Over the last two decades performance art has largely gained from trends towards dienchanments about the objecthood of art. There has been a significant growth in interest towards the process; performance art often highlights 'process' as an anti-thesis to the 'celebrated  finished hood', often situating itself in an anti commodity protest. However it has also diversified into being a 'new art' which transcends boundaries of recognized media, encompassing those that have not been previously identified as artistic media....especially within fine art practices.
Although performance art claims a inter media status, it is still claimed from within a particular framework of visual arts practices. In its workings to create an 'other' vis-à-vis performing arts, performance art tends to become more comfortable with it's another 'other' i.e. 'fine arts. The KHOJ 2004-05 November December International Residency was a step towards discovering, locating and showcasing newly emerging practices in an attempt to challenge the concept metaphor called 'performance art in India'.
We have been exposed to various possibilities in performance through the various KHOJ worhshops where over the years a number of artists have worked with performance art. Even outside KHOJ, artists like Nalini Ramani, Rumanna Hussain, Sharmila Samant, Pushpamala and Monali Meher have been exploring possibilities and re defining performance art. In 2004 we decided to put it all together in a residential 'process and display' format and give performance art a new critical impetus through practice. The residency was a significant exploration of 'performance' within visual arts.
There is a need to challenge the 'trans media' claims of performance art and to interrogate the comfort it enjoys with a certain kind of 'high' within visual art practices. If performance art has to engage with allegations about it being a derivative practice, it has to it has to constantly rejuvenate it self ....possibly through pushing boundaries of performing and video. The KHOJ 2005-2006 residency is curated towards putting together artists from across the board in an attempt to rejuvenate the concept and practice of performance art in India.

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rahul bhattacharya

Joint Secretary
Performers Independent
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let the river flow