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ARTiculate at GITAM: Performative India

ARTiculate 2023

URL: https://www.gitam.edu/
Event Date: 2023-01-27 ~ 2023-01-28
Abstract Submission Date: 2022-12-10
Submission Date: 2022-12-10
Organizer: GITAM University, Hyderabad Campus

Concept Note

The Implications of “Performance”

A catalogue of the implications of ‘performance’ today includes a wide range of staged acts including social drama, concerts and theatrical performances, events of varied kinds, productions involving the various media, displays on streets, malls or public spaces, participatory events that challenge audience and performer roles, or occurrences that blur the lines between reality and fiction. As a nation India simultaneously exists in the past and in the present. The subjects shift their world-views between the traditional and the contemporary and there is a constant engagement with the past to define and redefine present identities and histories. The venues of traditional performances shifted from the traditional temple or salon to the massive proscenium stages, and to mundane or unconventional spaces.The scale of performances too varied from being solo performer events to mega-events that broke world records. The very concept of ‘performance’ as an ephemeral ‘act’ also provides a metaphor for many occurrences and events that are staged for a public.

The Performing Arts in India: Past, Present, Future

The performing arts in India have been undergoing several changes since their renaissance in the early twenty first century when they were recast as tokens of the cultural identity of the new nation. Several traditional performing arts of India continue to sustain themselves through negotiating changed contexts, patronage patterns and audience expectations, while others recede into oblivion. The media industry has forged its own genre of popular music and dance circulated through the film industries that draw on traditional and imported forms. Reality television shows dole out their versions of talent, art, national heritage and culture. The institutionalisation of the traditional arts had opened the closed worlds to a larger public, and in recent times, the accelerated transition to virtual/online space potentially democratised the practices to an even greater extent. If in earlier times, some of the performing arts were accessible only to a minority, the new media opened the gates of the ivory tower. The new media also posed new challenges to artists in terms of audience engagement, teaching and sponsorship. In the multitudinous acts of performance, live or virtual, conventional or revolutionary, within or without the geographical bounds of the nation, there is an idea of India that gets asserted, challenged and created anew in each act.

Research Questions:

Some of the central research questions the conference attempts to address:

How is the idea of ‘India’ created, iterated, asserted, interpreted and questioned through various acts (‘real’ or ‘fictitious’) that may be staged before an audience?

What notions of the nation and region are articulated by artists who carry forward traditional and contemporary forms of dance, music and theatre?

How does performance become a metaphor for several ‘acts’ by individuals in personal and professional contexts that emphasise the ideas of display and achievement?

We invite contributions in the following areas:

Postcolonialism, the nation and performing arts:

The renaissance and reconstruction in the traditional arts of music, dance, theatre and the visual arts in the wake of nationalism and post-colonialism. The reformulation of some traditional arts as ‘classical arts’; the role of the shastras/ texts, individuals, and institutions in the process.

The politics of culture and identity in performance: What are the elements of culture reclaimed as heritage, / significant elements in the identity of the nation? How is identity constructed through various acts? Performer identities, Performer categories: musicians, dancers, actors, magicians, puppeteers and so on.

Arts education in India: Problems, scope, significance; institutionalisation of art, pedagogy, training.

Aesthetics and technique: Questions relating to the fundamentals and grammar of forms, form and content, critiques of specific works.

Biographical research on Indian artists, critics, promoters.

Arts administration, patronage and production in India: questions relating to sustenance, sponsorship, policy, curation and conduct of performing arts festivals, publicity, circulation of artworks in different media.

Social drama and staged events: Real world events and the narratives based on/ around them; cultural performance, live art, experience design.

Screen acts: the media and performances. This includes performances on screen which are part of other media texts, performing arts based reality television shows or exclusively performance based works created for the screen such as dance films, music videos.

Contributions are invited on any of the above or allied areas in any of the two categories:

Paper presentations (Duration: 20 minutes)

Paper presentations will be based on well-researched writings that are ready for publication.

Lecture Demonstrations (Duration: 30 minutes)

Focussed and original lec-dems that are not of the run-of-the mill variety merely introducing a form, and are based on one of the conference themes are encouraged.

Open Session/ Poster Presentation: (Duration: 10 minutes)

Any creative or research-based explorations/ works in progress in the form of talk/ demo/ poster by scholars or artists at any stage of their career can be presented and discussed.

Submission of Abstracts/ Proposals:

Abstracts of 300-350 words of original unpublished research are invited for paper presentations.

Proposals of approximately 300 words detailing the theme of the presentation and the requirements in terms of space, equipment for the demo, are invited for the lec-dems and open session

The abstract/ proposal document should also have a one page bio of the scholar/ artist with contact details.

Email id for abstract submission:rramesha@gitam.edu, spothera@gitam.edu

Event Promotion

2024-06-02 ~ 2024-06-06

2024-08-19 ~ 2024-08-22

ARTiculate at GITAM: Performative India

Event Promotion

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