The Kala Ghoda Art Festival 2010 kicked off to a rollicking start on Saturday. After sampling a bit of literature, visual art, music and food through the day, I finally settled on theatre for my final course in the night. The play ‘Dance Like A Man’ was being staged at Horniman Circle at 7.30 p.m.

I’ve attended music events at Horniman Circle before, most of them Kala Ghoda Art Festival events. It is an unconventional setting, a stage in the center of a park. But it works really well, more so for a play than a music concert given the intimate interaction that is possible between audience and performer.

A bench-painting event had been conducted earlier in the evening owing to which all the seating en route to the stage bore ‘Wet Paint’ signboards. It was too dark for photography and I was eager to get to the stage before the play started but I passed some interesting art on the way. (I hope one of us will be able to post photographs soon).

Just as well, I suppose, since we got there just about five minutes before the play began. All the seats were taken so we sat down on the grass and that’s how we watched the entire play. Normally, I would not consider squatting on the ground for a play but like I said, this was an unconventional setting.

The stage and seating area were edged on one side by ‘Lotuses of the Floating World’, an art installation by Sabrina Mascarehas. As I approached the area, I first thought they were diyas floating in a pool. But I soon realized that there is no water body inside the park and the temperature was the uncharacteristic cool of February rather than the heat of a hundred lamps. (Click here to read the whole post)

I don’t think that i have ever seen so many people at Kala Ghoda. In a way, the crowds were overwhelming. Personal space dissolved, and you went with the flow. It is the first time that i have seen so many different types of people at KGAF.

This year, a lot more seemed to be happening. More shops, more food, more people, more exhibits, and more variety …I went on a chilly Saturday afternoon. The first thing that strikes you are the crowds…. in fact the first thing that struck me was a whole bunch of kids and a whole bunch of mothers having a blast at the KG children’s festival. Whover said that Indian’s are repressed and undemonstrative doesn’t know what s/he is talking about

The masks marked the event display ! colourful, funny masks of all sorts …

For me, the key displays were the photographsy exhibitions - and by the looks of the crowd milling around - so was it for them. There were beautiful open air exhibits of a Mumbai ’slice of life’

In fact, the crowds were so overwhelming, that after a point i thought that there is no way i can photograph the experience. the chatter, the gasps …. and of course they were jostling my elbow and it seemed kind of churlish to glare at them !

(a senior citizen at the out door photography exhibition )

And, finally,

How can someone not hug him ? :)

Beginning with the Valentine’s Day Special:

Take that, Muthalik, et al.

Kids will be kids… and thank god for that. (Most endearing image from Kala Ghoda - tiny tots in over-sized white Surf Excel T-shirts, looking like a bunch of druids going off to their annual conference - Asterix and the Goths? Indeed, daag acche hain, good stuff, Surf Excel!)

I will not look on things as worldly…

And here is another window to fight-back…

This answer is blowing in the wind…

And at the end of the day.

2/3rds of this city lives in slums and on the streets…

How long can you stand it?

Me? Makes me wonder about my chances for Forein Tuou and Edueotion. What about you? How long can you stand it?

If you don’t have a friend in the audience already, there’s no way you’re going to get a good seat. Scratch that. You probably need to have a friend in the organisers to get the good seats. They are the ones in front, cordoned off from us come-lately types. They are the ones where people in crisp suits and smooth sarees sit with legs crossed and inevitably murmur when a performance is on. This is where photographers magically pull out feet long lenses from snazzy little camera pouches and proceed to exhibit them to those who unfortunately stand behind, craning and creeping to somehow catch a glimpse of the stage.

There’s no stepping on to the ampitheatre steps after 5:00pm either. There’s just no space. For 10 minutes, I scout the amoebic periphery of people standing around the stage. For the remaining 10 minutes (It’s a 20 minute performance, I realise too late), I decide to give up the quest for standing space or a better view - and am utterly and helplessly transfixed.

Chase Entertainment presents ‘Dazzlers’, an amalgamation of seven dance styles.

Wearing the colours of the rainbow, seven dancers interpret an expansive range of music using seven different styles of dancing. They perform individually, in apparently mismatched pairs, and then together as one mismatched unit in perfect step. The effect is astounding. The crowd goes wild. Every pause in the music sequence draws hoots, cheers and applause from the audience.

The performance ends too soon, and the crowd begins to disperse. Overheard among them is a wide-eyed young man explaining to his friend:
“Dude, see? Those are legs worth watching. Ballet, man. No more Surya TV.”

Appreciation of art can take many forms, it seems.

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival ‘09.

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival ‘09.

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival ‘09.

I caught several elbows on camera last night. Elbows, parts of heads, legs, torsos - I have never seen the Kala Ghoda festival so crowded on a weekday evening. There is no place to move, no place to sit, stand, point a camera at without the elbows and sometimes entire backs coming between the camera and the object. I exchange silent notes with other people with cameras when this happens. You know, eyes rolling, superior smiles, those kind of notes. In front of this inverted cone of plastic stuff, this man has been sitting crouched, his camera placed on the ground pointing up. He sits and sits and I wonder if he is waiting for a moment when the place is going to be empty. I finally ask him; turns out he is hoping to get a brilliant silhouette against the back-lit plastic hill and he shows me some of the earlier images from the crouched position. I don’t know his name but I know I will recognize those photographs if I come across them again - (note to self : go check out flickr right away).

So the crowds. There is nothing new in the food, the same overpriced Chetna snack stalls and the rest of it. The performances, I think I will reserve comment on them till I have picked up my snazzy t-shirt. So, the main draw? The installations. There are lots more than I have ever seen at Kala Ghoda. The mosquito men (is that what they are called? Why?) are my favorite - they are everywhere, balancing on a tight-rope walk, climbing what looks like a bee-hive, running away from a savage killer who has already struck several blunt clubs into his back.

Oh, that last one. Turns out, he is a smoker and those blunt clubs are air-filters of some sort and so on. I told you, hidden meanings. (Tip of the day : do not read those signboards that go with the installations, make up your own stories. It is much more fun that way).

People have discovered so many new causes this year…?, I wonder aloud. Letters to Pakistan, harassment of women, urban sanitation, democracy and all the rest of it. Nice, I support all of them. People just have more time now, they are all vela, tells my cynical friend. When in doubt, blame it on recession. I don’t know if he is talking about those behind the installation or those in front of them, watching them and wondering about the hidden deeper meanings. Whatever. There is a huge variety of street installations, some up in the air, some on the ground, all of them fascinating. People are looking obediently through whichever windows they have been asked to look through and signing their names and leaving their thoughts wherever they have been asked to.

There is a cynic in our midst, he (she?) has written on the democracy thingie on the pavement - it does not matter which donkey you vote for, the fact remains that everyone in power eventually becomes a donkey. Clearly, one voter we are not going to see at the poll booths this time. Someone else is thinking about Valentine’s Day (and pink Chaddis too, I like to imagine) and says, Vote for the right Candy-Date.

I like the tiny booth set up by the Fight-Back group too. It is perhaps because it is dark by the time I walk through the narrow lanes inside the booth but it does feel claustrophobic. I keep expecting someone to pop out and say Boo or some thing. For a minute inside the alley, I am truly alone.

In all this, I see I missed the magic balls and I fully intend to hunt for them when I go back tomorrow.

Courtesy Aniruddha Kadam.

Click here for some Day 1 pictures.

And here for some from Day 2.

Got pictures? Leave a link in the comments space, and we’ll add you here.

So much of the colour at Kala Ghoda comes from not just the artists but the visitors as well. That little street is awash with colour. Art students display their fledgling works. Aspiring writers congregate with journalists. Photographers stroll around, cameras casually hung around their necks. Families wander around wonder and curiosity writ large on their faces. Busy corporate types step out to ‘catch the fest’, ties loosened around their necks and their reactions escaping from their normally controlled faces. Tourists bustle about, wide-eyed at the colour. Teenagers mill about, their natural energy, for once, shared by everyone in the crowd alike, age irrespective.

The different faces of the city walk around marveling at the sights. And at each other.
(Click here to read the whole post)

The art district of Mumbai is hosting a festival. Movies are being screened, workshops conducted, books discussed, plays (and other acts) staged. There is also a mela happening!

Don’t believe me?

Here is a potter. He beckons…come closer. A grinning imp, paint streaked across his face settles down to touch the clay.

(Click here to read the whole post)

At the core of the KGAF, every year, is the street art. From the bizzare to the thought provoking, from the quirky to the cute…. each year the street exhibits manage to get the crowds gawking. And, this year was no exception.
At the centre piece of the KGAF exhibtion was a giant ferris wheels of cycles with dabbhas….

Mumbai Masti - from the exhibition:
If the world is your playground, then Mumbai is certainly a giant ferris wheel. And one that carries everything with it, as it goes around its axis going about its daily business.
(Click here to read the whole post)

here:

www.flickr.com

More photos in Kala Ghoda Gazette

The PenTathalon sounded like fun. And unnerving given its ‘Five Exercises for Fiction Writers’ description. What does a fiction writer look like, one wondered. I found out on the morning of Saturday, 3rd February.

Kavita Bhanot, the workshop leader, turned out to be a charming, soft-spoken young lady with a clipped British accent and an eye (and ear) for detail. There were fifteen participants from various backgrounds - a journalist, a business consultant, an animation script-writer, an accountant, a former magazine editor and an advertising professional to name a few.

The five exercises were actually discussions on five aspects of fiction writing: Openings, Description , Characterization, Dialogue and Point of View. Kavita started with,

You all probably read a lot of books and enjoy them. There are actually several techniques employed by fiction writers that you would not have noticed so far because you aren’t familiar with them. In this workshop we will look at some of them and how you can use them in writing.

(Click here to read the whole post)

A lot of people come to the Kala Ghoda Art Festival in the evening. A lot of people don’t know what they are missing. And it might be a good idea to not be one of that lot of people!

I was lucky. Having signed up for a morning workshop, I ended up in town bright and early and just in time to watch the festivities being set up. I spent the entire weekend in that single lane bordered by Elphinston college, Jehangir Art Gallery, Bombay Natural History society and Rhythm House.

(Click here to read the whole post)