Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Literature & Writing Schedule

Kala Ghoda Arts Festival, Literature & Writing Schedule

Please note that this is not the official site for the Literature and Writing section. We are placing this schedule here as a convenience to our readers and members, and to help the organisers spread the word. The programme may change due to unforeseen circumstances.

Literature and Writing Festival
Presented by R. Sriram & Janhavi Acharekar
Elphinstone College, NGMA Auditorium & David Sassoon Library – Garden



4th Feb 2006 – Saturday

5.30 pm
NGMA Auditorium
The Dark Horse: Walking Down Arun Kolatkar's Lane
The Literature Festival at Kala Ghoda is inaugurated with a powerful performance by Gowri Ramnarayan and group. ‘The Dark Horse' uses dialogue, music and poetry to explore the mind of renowned poet Arun Kolatkar. The show has met with much success in Chennai, Pondicherry, Kolkata and Mumbai.
Cast: Dhritiman Chaterji, Amrita Shetty
Performers: Andrea Jeremiah, R.Sunder, Craig Fernandez
Script, Direction, Music: Gowri Ramnarayan
Poetry Texts: Arun Kolatkar
Vocals: Savita Narasimhan
Lights: Amit Singh

7.30 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Launch of Atlas: New Writing, Art & Image and Aark Arts Contemporary World Poetry
Presented by: Sudeep Sen [editor] & Crossword [publisher]
Readings by/of:
Dilip Chitre, Arun Kolatkar, Kaifi Azmi, Tom Alter, John Agard, Grace Nichols, Amit Chaudhuri, Charles Bernstein, Christopher Merrill, Peter Porter, Les Murray, Tomaz Salamun, Matthew Sweeney, John Hartley Williams, Fiona Sampson, Amir Or, Zoran Anchevski, Naomi Shihab Nye, Imtiaz Dharker, Raj Rao, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Jerry Pinto, Anand Thakore, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Sharmishtha Mohanty, Hoshang Merchant, Anjum Hasan, Bina Sarkar, Tishani Doshi, Leeya Mehta & others
Photography by : Rafeeq Ellias

5th Feb 2006 – Sunday

4.30 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Poetry for Youth
Presented by: Anju Makhija and Jane Bhandari
A delightful reading and performance of poetry for young adults by poets Jane Bhandari, Anju Makhija and others.

6 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
A Talk with Shantaram
Theatre personality Dolly Thakore in conversation with author of ‘Shantaram', Gregory David Roberts
Shantaram, the novel that has taken the world by storm, is based on the author's own experiences. It is the story of an Australian convict on the run in Mumbai, his life in the slums and his tryst with the mafia. Participate in a discussion with the author of this extraordinary work that celebrates the spirit of this city.

7.30 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Rain by Sudeep Sen: ‘Poetry, Art & Jazz in Performance'
Reading by: Sudeep Sen & Tom Alter
Jazz Flute: Rajeev Raja
Art by:
Jehangir Sabavala, Paritosh Sen, Gulammohammed Sheikh, Jatin Das, Arpana Caur, Gieve Patel, Baiju Parthan, Paresh Maity, Meera Devidayal, Rekha Rodwittiya, Jogen Chowdhury & others

6th Feb 2006 – Monday

5.30 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Sufi & Urdu poetry
Reading by:
Anju Makhija, Ashok Banthiya & Tom Alter
Sufi Songs by:
Kala Ramesh
Reading of the works of Ghalib, Iqbal and Faiz. Poetry reading of renowned 16th century Sufi poet Shah Abdul Latif, translated by poet Anju Makhija and Hari Dilgir. Sufi songs of Kabir, Gorakhnath and Shah Latif.

7 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Criticism & Camaraderie
Presented by: Bina Sarkar Elias, editor Gallerie
Join Gallerie, the arts and ideas journal on a lively discussion with artists, poets, writers, photographers, actors and filmmakers – on the need for good criticism.

7th Feb 2006 – Tuesday
6 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Fresh Off The Shelf: Recently launched books
Talk & Reading by authors:
Kankana Basu, Sharmistha Mohanty, Neeru Nanda, Sonia Faleiro, CP Surendran
Authors talk about their works, the writing and publishing process, interspersed with readings.

8 – 9 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Shooting Rhymes & Cutting Verses
Film Screening in collaboration with The British Council
13 short films where the directors give a visual interpretation to poetry and successfully blend two art forms, showing incredible imagination in adding their own personal signatures to literary gems.
More Information...

8th Feb 2006 – Wednesday
7.30 pm
David Sassoon Garden
Short stories from around the country: Performances
Performance by:
Shivani Vakil, Digvijay Savant, Anupama Jayaram, Jasvinder Singh and Dilshad Edibam.
A performance of Urdu, Tamil, Kannada, Bengali and Hindi short stories in translation from Katha.

9th Feb 2006 – Thursday
6 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Writing Non-Fiction: The Mills, Narmada Dam and Godhra
Talk & Reading by authors:
Darryl D'Monte, Dilip D'Souza, Dionne Bunsha
Ex-editor of the Times of India and author Darryl D'monte in discussion with journalists and authors Dilip D'Souza and Dionne Bunsha about writing for causes, interspersed with readings.

8 – 9.30 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Beats 'n' Bars & Air Guitars
Film Screening in collaboration with The British Council
A celebration of contemporary British music through 8 short films that explore some of the many possibilities revealed by combining music and visual images.
More Information...

10th Feb 2006 – Friday

5.30pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Mumbai Poetry Live! with the British Council
Reading & Performance by :
John Agard, Imtiaz Dharkar, Eunice de Souza, Adil Jussawalla, Ranjit Hoskote, Jerry Pinto, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Menka Shivdasani, CP Surendran, Marilyn Noronha, Sampurna Chattarji, Anju Makhija and Revathy Gopal
More Information...

11th Feb 2006 – Saturday
10.30 am – 5 pm
Elphinstone College Seminar Room
Fiction Writing Workshop Part 1
by Neeru Nanda
More Information...

6 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Performance Poetry with the British Council
Reading & Performance by poet:
Shamshad Khan

8 – 9 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Shooting Rhymes & Cutting Verses
Film Screening in collaboration with British Council
13 short films where the directors give a visual interpretation to poetry and successfully blend two art forms, showing incredible imagination in adding their own personal signatures to literary gems.
More Information...

12th Feb 2006 – Sunday
10.30 am – 5 pm
Elphinstone College Seminar Room
Fiction Writing Workshop Part 2 by
Neeru Nanda, with Guest author Kalpana Swaminathan
More Information...

5.30 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
SMS poetry competition awards
Flash fiction competition awards

6 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Literature & New Media
Readings and performances by: Caferati.com
More Information...

7.45 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Literature & New Media
Readings by Iqbal Patni: Tasveer ki Aawaz (The voice of images)

8.30 – 10 pm
David Sassoon Library Garden
Beats 'n' Bars & Air Guitars
Film Screening in collaboration with British Council
A celebration of contemporary British music through 8 short films that explore some of the many possibilities revealed by combining music and visual images.
More Information...


The Fiction Writing Workshops
These will be interactive sessions where the participants will be given brief inputs on which to create character, dialogue, plot and outline interspersed with readings from stories written by renowned writers. On Day 2 of the workshop the participants are expected to bring their own story for a critical review. Acclaimed author, Kalpana Swaminathan, will moderate the session between 4 and 5 pm. as a guest writer.

Participants must preferably e-mail Neeru to confirm their attendance and submit a very brief note on themselves. Those interested in participating on Day 2 must fill the application form (please visit www.kalaghodaassociation.com for more details) and submit their stories beforehand.

Neeru Nanda has been in the field of writing and publishing for almost 15 years. She has attended various Fiction and Literature related courses in Columbia University, New York. She has just released her first collection of short stories titled IF, published by Rupa & Co. The book has been endorsed by Ruskin Bond and has been receiving very favourable reviews in the press.


Poetry with The British Council

John Agard

Poet, playwright, performer, anthologist, John Agard was born in Guyana and went to Britain in 1977. He worked for the Commonwealth Institute from 1978-1985 as a touring reader, during which time he visited some two thousand schools across the UK talking about his Caribbean experiences and giving talks, readings and workshops. John was the first Writer in Residence at the South Bank Centre, London in 1993 and was honoured with a Paul Hamlyn Award in 1997. His books include Man to Pan (Casa de las Americas Prize, 1982), Mangoes and Bullets, We Animals Would Like a Word With You, From the Devil's Pulpit, and he has edited several children's poetry anthologies.

Imtiaz Dharker

She is a poet, artist and documentary film-maker Her collections 'Purdah', 'Postcards from god' and 'I speak for the devil' include her own drawings for these sequences. Her next book, to be published by Bloodaxe in April 2006, is 'The terrorist at my table'. According to Alan Ross, writing in London Magazine, 'Hers is a strong, concerned, economical poetry, in which political activity, homesickness, urban violence, religious anomalies, are raised in an unobtrusive domestic setting, all the more effectively for their coolness of treatment'.

Shamshad Khan

"..there is no convenient category in which to place Shamshad Khan. Her poetry is delicately worded yet strong in its messages. She presents her work with such physicality that to watch her truly engages the senses."

Carmen Walter, Writing Magazine Shamshad Khan is a Manchester-based poet. She is the Co-editor of two anthologies of poetry and currently is the Literature Advisor to the Arts Council England (North West) and Associate Artist with the green room, Manchester. She has recently been shortlisted for an Arts Foundation Fellowship in performance poetry (to be announced 2006).

Her publications include: "The Firepeople" (Payback Press 1998), "Velocity" (Black Spring Press, 2003), "Masala" poems for children (McMillan 2005) Her performance work includes: Megalomaniac - Verse theatre with live beat box and music from Jason Singh (of Nitin Sawhney Sound System) and Basil Clarke. This piece premiered at the green room, Manchester's centre for new performance in 2004 and was selected for presentation at the Decibel international showcase (2005) and is on a UK national tour (2005/06). Hard Cut - A poetic monologue with music. Selected for "National Review of Live Art", the UK's leading annual showcase of new contemporary performance (2002); performed for conference of women live art performers (Beurne, Switzerland 2003) and the Barcelona Literature Festival (2004). Megalomaniac and Hard Cut are both directed by Mark Whitelaw, winner of the Lawrence Olivier Award 2004. Her commissioned performances include - BBC Radio 3 and the Manchester Museum installation (2003-05). Arts and Business (Oct 2005), Glasgow Hidden Gardens (Nov 2005) and in 2006 she has been commissioned to present a programme for BBC Radio on Muslim poets.



Films with The British Council
1. Shooting Rhymes & Cutting Verses

Summer With Monika
Corrina Askin
5min, Animation, 2000
This short animated film is based on Roger McGough's classic quirky love poem "Summer With Monika". With insightful humour it explores the paranoia and self doubt which seeps into most romantic relationships at one stage or another.
Corrina Askin's imaginative film seems at first glance to be a stream of consciousness in which the images shift effortlessly from one to the next but on closer inspection reveal a very deliberate sense of timing, one that supports a well thought out narrative.
Summer With Monika is an exciting montage of colour and exuberant abstraction which gives a perspective which does not always tally with the narrators. An upbeat score composed by Aidan Mulholland and Roger McGough's soulful narration keeps everything light-hearted.

Picassoesque
Sally Ann Arthur
3min, Animation, 1998
An colourful animated version of Julia Darling's poem Picassoesque: sticking two fingers up at the beauty industry's obsession with stick-like ankles/women. Those with more pillar-like legs are encouraged to ignore the images which bombard them and enjoy their strong wide limbs!

Elevator
Alrick Riley
4min, Fiction, 2000
In an elevator a chance encounter of two men creates an atmosphere which instigates presumptions. A question belying preconception cultivates these presumptions which mutate though ignorance into fear doing the journey downwards. A man's mind disintegrates. The poet explains it and we then witness the final, beautiful scene.

The Burdened Ass
Adrian Hedgecock
12min, Fiction, 2002
France, 1916: John, a soldier and wannabe poet needs to save his sanity, and his ass, whilst he still can. Deserting the front line, John wonders with his head in the clouds until befriending an ass (as in ‘donkey') whose attitude towards life helps the young soldier to recall everything he's been missing and re-evaluate everything he (thinks he ) knows...

Lonely Boy
Becalelis Brodskis
2min, Animation, 2002
A moving portrait of loneliness. The story of a man who estranged from those around him lives out his life utterly alone.

Broken Glass
Marte Holth
5 Min, Animation, 2001
Sand-dry humour leavens a stop-motion anti-nostalgia nightmare. Just don't call for mommy when you wake up.

The Lines
Suzie Hanna, Hayley Winter
4min, Animation, 2001
This collaborative film is based on a short poem, ‘The Lines' by Andrew Motion. Animated text in the landscape and electro-acoustic sound interact to interpret and experiment with the meanings contained in the poem. Themes visited are history of the building of the railways, changing seasons and death. Techniques include 16mm film and video pixillation, drawn and mixed-media animation, edited digitally using Adobe Premiere.

Minister For Exams, The
Paul Trewartha
2min, Animation, 99
The Minister for Exams is a short film based on a poem by Brian Patten that explores the oppressive nature of education, as represented in context of a child's undefiled imagination.
Designed to manipulate the flow of vision through a use of space, editing and direction, this film addresses the relationship between language and movement, thought and expression.

Not Waving
Jane Rogayska
4min, Fiction, 2002
A happy group of picnickers bustle to the beach. One man changes into his swimming trunks, puts on a pair of flippers, does a clownish dance and dives into the grey-blue sea. The other picnickers notice their friend waving from the water, and wave back energetically. We hear the waves. The man waves from the deep water, his hand sailing from side to side. Gradually, he loses control in the water and disappears.

For You
Heidi Kocevar
3min, Animation, 2000
The changing faces of love are shown through the attempts of a man to capture his beloved forever. The film is approximately 2min. 45sec. long. It was painted with clay straight under the camera and is strongly influenced by the paintings of Rene Magritte.

The Tyre
Brian Hill
9min, Fiction, 2000
The Tyre is a short film based on a poem by poet, Simon Armitage. The Film is about a sales rep who feels trapped and tied down by his life. He eventually frees himself through a magical childhood memory.

The Man With The Beautiful Eyes
Jonathan Hodgson
5min, Animation, 2000
A gang of kids find a strange house with an overgrown garden where they play. Only once do they meet the man who lives there, a dead-beat alcoholic with a free and easy spirit who welcomes them. The children see him as a romantic character in stark contrast to their neurotically house proud parents.

The Old Fools
Ruth Lingford
6min, Animation, 2002
‘The Old Fools' directed by Ruth Lingford is based on the poem of the same name by Philip Larkin. The film presents a clear-eyed look at the inevitability of our own decay and death, with some humour and visual seduction. Using images that are visceral, abrasive and sometimes quite beautiful, the film hints at the consequences of our society's denial of death. Techniques include DV footage, drawings and typography digitally animated, using Painter and After Effects.



Films with The British Council
2. Beats n Bars & Air Guitars

Music can paint pictures, make you laugh and dance the whole night through. It can relax you, put you into a contemplative frame of mind or take you to another dimension. Beats ‘N' Bars & Air Guitars celebrates the joy of making music through film and presents musicians who want to experiment, create soundscapes and push boundaries of musical ex-pression. The programme offers a chance to look again at the diverse experiences music can offer, and explores some of the many possibilities revealed by combining music and visual images.

The films are diverse in both style and content, ranging from the contemplative poetic black and white film, Listen, through the surreal Stop my Head, the abstract Colour Keys, and the hard-hitting story of F unction at the Junction to the documentary Go to your Room. The programme examines some of the many ways in which music can create its own narrative, and reveals the vibrancy of the contemporary British film and music scenes.

The Films:

Listen (Director: Mandeep Ahira, 11 minutes)

Stop my Head (Director: Caroline Espenhahn, 4 minutes)

Colour Keys (Director: David Daniels, 4 minutes)

Function at the Junction (Director: Justin McArdie, 14 minutes)

Aggressively Joyful (Director: Chris Rodgers, 2 minutes)

Stairway at St Pauls (Director: Jeroen Offerman, 9 minutes)

Go to your Room (Director: Dami Akinnusi, 31 minutes)

Holly Bolly (Director: Dishad Husain, 15 minute)

http://www.caferati.com/contests/KGAF2006Lit.htm