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 ? :)

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?

In the “Postcards to Pakistan” booth (courtesy Fight Back), they ask if you would like to write a, you got it, postcard to Pakistan. Many people have written short messages on small cards, one or two on inland letters, and they are up on the walls of the booth. I’m told they will be delivered to the Pakistan High Commission after the Festival.

To my surprise, the great majority of the messages are unsigned, apart from several who style themselves “an Indian”. It reminds me just tangentially about anonymous comments on blogs. Just tangentially. The ones that are signed seem to be from kids, such as “Anoushka Bhatt, age 9.”

Here’s a random selection of these postcard messages that will make their way to Pakistan:

There also happens to be a message there scrawled by your diligent correspondent. Honk if you see it.

At the parking lot-turned-art installation space, opposite the Jehangir Art Gallery, I find myself gazing at a sign titled, simply, “REASON”. The name given to this particular installation. Seeing that I’m a fan of reason and also seeing that it is hot like you wouldn’t believe this Sunday afternoon and this installation is housed in a small shady booth — seeing those things, I step in.

There’s a glass display case that I gaze at while cooling down. Three shelves and various artifacts on them. Such as? you want to know.

There’s a stopwatch that’s stopped at 625pm. It sits inside a cracked glass shaped like a ball. There’s a large old rusting lock. Its keys, like long slender brown fingers, are attached to a keyring nearby. All around these are small white paper birds.

On the top shelf are several notes on folded sheets of paper in multiple colours. Scribbled on the paper is this legend: “MISS U …”, though at least one emphasized the message thus: “MISS U U …”

There are five (5) beakers with yellow fluid and dead flowers stuffed inside. They are surrounded by paper butterflies.

At the bottom is a horizontal hourglass lying on a page torn from a diary, and scribbled on that page is “See for the nature… Live to smile … Catch a hope … To survive!!!”

The booth is empty when I step in, but as I stand there taking in the birds and the “MISS U U”, floods of kids start, well, flooding in, asking me “What is this?” I get the strangest feeling I have become part of the installation.

Outside, the sign titled “REASON” has these words among others: “I wants to provide an eye-onpener to the viewer … where people are getting concertized … I want us to stop and think of this never ending rat race.”

All in all, a fine way to step into the Kala Ghoda Festival, edition 2009. Not least because I can’t get rats and their races out of my head for the rest of the day. But I really want to know who this Miss U is.

(This is a two-session workshop, so you must attend both sessions.)

Saturday, 14th February (Session 1) 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
Sunday 15th February (Session 2) 4:00 pm – 5:00 pm
BNHS Auditorium

For children below the age of 8

Maximum Number of Participants: 15

Language: English

Conducted By: Nilima Eriyat

(Click here to read the whole post)

Saturday, 14th February, 10am - 11am
BNHS Auditorium
For children aged 9-12

Maximum Number of Participants: 20-25

Language: English

Conducted By: Saker Mistri

(Click here to read the whole post)

Date: Monday,9th
Time: 2:30-4:30pm
Venue: Bombay Natural History Society (BNHS) Auditorium

Maximum Number of Participants: 40

Genre: Non Fiction

Language: Marathi

Conducted By: Shashikant Sawant

(Click here to read the whole post)

Renowned artist Sunil Padwal’s mural is on the Khyber Wall at Kala Ghoda, Mumbai. The Kala Ghoda Association has a limited edition of personally signed prints on archival paper (100 only) of this Equestrian mural.

Size 55cm X 14cm. Click on the thumbnail for a larger image.

These are available for Rs. 5000 each. Kala Ghoda Members can avail of a special price of Rs. 4000 each. Cheques to be made out in the name of “Kala Ghoda Association.” 80G deduction available on payments. An 80G certificate will be given along with a receipt for payment.

The proceeds from the sale of the prints shall go towards the beautification of the Kala Ghoda Art Precinct.

Kindly do contact me at the address/phone numbers given below.

Brinda Chudasama Miller
studio:’Millernium’
c/o ABM Architects
665 Cadell Rd
Mumbai 400028
Tel:24444401
Mo:9892805555

A guest post from Melody.

A: More than you can imagine!

Photographs taken at the Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, the annual art festival in Mumbai housing “Gallery and pavement shows, exhibitions, literary events, film screenings, music concerts, dance performances, theatre shows, workshops, heritage walks, a food fiesta, and a buzzing street festival bring in audiences and participants from all over the city” (cf Kala Ghoda Association)

(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)

Bae Chang-Ho’s My Heart shall be screened today at the Max Mueller Bhavan at 1830 hours i. e. 6:30 in the evening. The director is considered the foremost exponent of the Korean New Wave cinema. In a stark departure from his usual style of film-making, My Heart is set in the Korea of 1920’s.

The movie is shot amidst the beautiful scenery of Korea. It tells the story of Sun-Yi (played by Kim Yoo-Mi, the director’s wife), who is married off to a ten-year old spoiled brat. When her husband grows past adolescence, he brings home a mistress much to the petrifaction of Sun-Yi. The movie tells the story of how Sun-Yi leaves home and searches for an identity of her own. In a way, the movie mirrors the struggle of Korea to find its identity in a shrinking world. (Click here to read the whole post)

Two of the gems of experimental cinema - Manhatta and The Man With The Movie-Camera - were screened at the Gallery Beyond yesterday. Since I missed the first one (I watched it on the internet anyway), I shall review only The Man With The Movie-Camera.

Made in 1929 by Dziga Vertov with cinematography by his brother Mikhail Khaufman, The Man With The Movie-Camera captures the Russian life in all its avatars. The movie has no story as such, yet one could call it the story of a people and a time.

The movie shows the Russian way of life in minute detail, and not often in the sad way that directors of art movies are wont to perceive. The camera captures in a most natural way the beautifully uncertain smiles, the lips that make unheard whispers, basking ladies, the victories and the excitement, the routine and the indifference - all captured with the devouring eye of a greedy voyeur and the detailed panache of a keen observer. The result is a movie which speaks of life without judgment and the consequent pitfalls that a jaundiced eye brings to the task of film-making. (Click here to read the whole post)

The third session of Experimental Cinema screenings (and my second), Gallery Beyond showcased the last four of Avant-Garde movies they had chosen to screen. I say chosen to screen because the Avant-Garde Collection (from which the movies are being shown) is a much wider collection comprising many more movies than time would have allowed them to show.

The four movies screened were:

• Regen (Rain) (Netherlands, 1929) directed by Joris Ivens, 14 minutes: This is a movie every Bombayite would love to watch, especially if you’ve grown up watching the rain and what gentle poetry it can create on the streets and in the minds of men. If you can catch this short film anytime, please do so. It is a lovely evocation of rain in Amsterdam and how people react to it. Perhaps the most lyrical of all Avant-Garde movies, it is for the best that it is a silent movie. The gentle strumming of the guitar throughout the movie is the only sound the movie has. It is the director’s best documentary before he moved on to doing political documentaries. It is now my favorite documentary; when you have watched it, it will be yours too.
• H2O (US, 1929) directed by Ralph Steiner, 12 minutes: This movie demonstrates what light can do with surfaces, especially with water. An intensive exploration of the play between light and water, it soon delves into abstractions leaving the consciousness of the existence of water behind. Recommended only if you love the sort of cinema that academics can argue and debate over.

(Click here to read the whole post)

I was lazing around in the afternoon and almost on a whim, I decided to attend the Avant-Garde movie screenings held at the Gallery Beyond. And it was so good that at the end of it, I cursed myself for being lazy and not attending on previous days.

The map for the festival does not pinpoint the location of the Gallery. And nobody except the a man standing outside Max Mueller could tell me where Gallery was. As a result, I arrived at the Gallery a full one hour late. To add to my woes, the watchman there told me that games were being played at the Gallery (Yahaan toh khel khila rahein hain).

Just as I was about to leave thinking that the event had been shifted to some other venue at the last minute for which notifications could not be put up on the website, a man told me that movies were indeed being screened at the Gallery and directed me to a door. I entered a darkened hall where the movies were being screened. It was only when my eyes adjusted to the light and I spotted paintings hanging on the walls around me that I realized I’d been ushered into the gallery itself.
(Click here to read the whole post)