ARTS and CULTURE

Ranga Shankara is organising a seminar on Company Theatre at 6 pm on 3rd November as part of the Ranga Shankara Theatre Festival '08, which pays tribute to this golden era of Indian theatre.Speakers at the seminar include,Amal Allana, renowned director and Chairperson of the National School of Drama, who will speak on gender impersonation in Company Nataka and reflect on the phenomenon in her own plays.Nissar Allana, renowned stage designer and author of Painted Scenaries: Backdrops of the 19th Century Marathi Sangeet Natak, who will speak on the subject of his book, the sceneries of the Marathi stageProf. Ramakrishna…

Few know that the Bandstand in Cubbon park was the hub of cultural activities in Bangalore in the 60's. The likes of Ilaiyaraaja had performed there. After a long gap Prakruthi, a non-profit organisation run by the duo M S Prasad and Praveen D Rao, took it upon itself to bring Kannada and its musical legacy back into the limelight, and revive the magic of bandstand and Cubbon park. The revival started on 5th October this year and many musical recitals and shows have been held there every Sunday between 5 and 7 PM since then. Performances by popular Kannada…

Ananya initiated the ‘Hadu Hakki’ project with the aim of introducing and encouraging learning and appreciation of Carnatic music among children. Supported by a grant from the India Foundation for the Arts, ‘Hadu Hakki’, a series of 19-episodes were aired through all the All India Radio stations of Karnataka, last year. The series were designed as simple interactive sessions to present the children with an overview of Carnatic music and were accompanied by articles for children in Ananya’s monthly magazine ‘Ananya Abhivyakti’. As a fitting finale to this, Ananya now presents ‘Hadu Hakki Habba’, a festival that aspires to encourage…

Considered a classic by most, yet not the best of Chaplin, The Great Dictator which released in 1949, is one of the most enduring satires of its time. The film takes place, as the title card clarifies, in a ‘period between two wars’. This film was screened as a part of Meta-Culture 2008 Film Festival on Conflict and Resolution last month at the Alliance Francaise. In the film, writer-director Chaplin plays opposed dual roles – that of a Jewish amnesiac barber and the Tomanian dictator Adenoid Hynkel. The plot The Great Dictator was Chaplin's first feature-length talkie. The movie, in…

SUNDAY JAM is a uniquely informal musician's meet that is part of an on-going endeavor by Guruskool (regd) to support musicians. Every first Sunday of the month, music bands meet at Guruskool's farm space in Nelamangala (about 33 kms away from Bangalore city) to share, perform and jam.Maraa, a media collective introduced theatre to the SUNDAY JAM in the month of October, and with this we hope to build a culture of theatre into this space. The idea was to create a space for short performances- self-written texts, stories, ideas, concepts and improvisations. Towards building an arts collective, we hope…

“It’s the only place in the city where you are served excellent chai at 2 AM”, swears Pradeep Andrews, Director of a bar entertainment consultancy firm, ‘Shaken N Stirred’. He is a long time resident of Infantry Road and knows Shivajinagar like the back of his palm. He further states that it is the safest place for a lady at any time of the day or night. There are die-hard fans of this area and there are others who know just the bus stand. Located between MG Road area and the Cantonment, Shivajinagar is a major commercial area and an…

An interesting photographic exhibition is on from 3rd October to 15th November at Café Fresco’s on Cunningham Road. Titled ‘Stone Theater’, the exhibition displays photographs of a different kind by Magali Couffon de Trevros. These beautiful images not retouched or reframed, but just printed on aluminum sheets. It is hard to believe that these are photographs of stones, sand and water bodies around them and the aluminum sheets add to the earthy effect of the theme.Magali is French by origin, and has been in Bangalore for about 6 years and in India for 15 years. Trained as a graphic designer,…

All of us know how difficult it is to keep in touch with the fine arts while managing a household or a profession; imagine how much tougher it can be to do so if one wanted to travel the world as well. But one extraordinary individual who has managed to all this, and managed to both teach and learn music in other countries, is Anasuya Kulakarni. Anasuya, who is in her fifties now, had a lovely voice as a young girl, and, after her training under Ganakala Ratna R R Keshava Murthy, was often asked to sing everywhere, though her…

Rock On is quite unlike any other movie that the Bollywood factory has churned out. It is the first Hindi movie that deals with rock music as its central theme, and is refreshingly different from most of the standard fare that we, as cinema-goers, have been subjected to. While the public in general seems to have been greatly appreciative of the movie, as box-office records would illustrate, I had mixed feelings about it once I walked out of the multiplex and walked back into reality, where rock bands were struggling to make it big, despite the odds being stacked heavily…

Navaratri, or the Nine Nights, are celebrated by the Bengalis as Durga Puja, or ‘Pujo’, for short. Over a period of years, several community Pujas have sprung up, and a roundup of a few ‘pandals’ (shamianas) over the five days of the Pujo brought some interesting vignettes of Bengali culture in our city, between the 5th and 9th of October. Abstract at Ulsoor pandal (Pic: Deepa Mohan)Rites and ritualsDurga, in her aspect of Mahishasura Mardhini (slayer of the Buffalo-Demon) is fondly addressed as ‘Ma’, and the mother is invited with pomp and celebration as she is supposed to be coming…