The TimeOut mint Planner
The TimeOut mint Planner
DELHI
Film
Tri Continental Film Festival
Till 18 January
For four years now, the Tri Continental Film Festival, organized by human rights organization Breakthrough, has brought the concerns of film-makers from the Global South to New Delhi.
The 2009 edition brings together 28 films from Asia, Africa and Latin America in an attempt to represent the three continents that form the Global South equally.
Stein Auditorium, Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (24682222). ML Bhartia Auditorium, Alliance Française de Delhi, 72, Max Mueller Marg, Lodhi Estate (43500200).
Theatre
Jabberwocky
17 January
6pm. Akshara Theatre, 1B, Baba Kharag Singh Marg (23364326).
The Ramayana (excerpts)
17 January
Originally performed by Jalabala Vaidya at a variety of international venues—including Broadway, the West End and the UN Headquarters in New York—the play, directed by Gopal Sharman, is now being revived with youngsters from Akshara Theatre’s Diksha Workshop
6pm. Akshara Theatre, 1B, Baba Kharag Singh Marg (23364326).
Kids
Block printing
17 January
Children learn the age-old technique of using wooden blocks with designs to embellish cloth and paper. For ages 9-15.
British Council Library, 17, Kasturba Gandhi Marg. Call Anu Bhardwaj (41497123). Fee, Rs250.
Music
Laya Shakti Group
19 January
The Ustad Ahmed Jan Thirakwa Memorial Society presents the Laya Shakti Group, consisting of Rashid Mustafa Thirakwa (tabla), Arunachalam Prem Kumar (‘mridangam’), Fateh Singh Gangani (‘pakhawaia’), Nasir Khan (‘sarangi’) and Sajjad Ahmed Khan (harmonium). The concert will be followed by a Kathak recital by Rajendra Gangani, who will be accompanied by Rashid Mustafa Thirakwa on the tabla.
7pm. Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (24682222).
Art
The People
Until 10 February
Curated by Johny M.L., the show features the paintings of New Delhi-based Josh P.S. and Mumbai-based Puja Puri.
10am-6.30pm, Monday-Saturday. Shrine Empire Gallery, 7, Friends Colony West (41327630).
Shades of Vietnam
21–24 January
Galleria presents paintings by contemporary French-Vietnamese artists, including Luong Dung, Nguyen Minh Phuoc, Dao Hai Phong, Nguyen Minh, Bui Huy Quang, Phan Thu Trang and Anh Quang.
Daily, 10am-8pm. Visual Arts Gallery, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road (43662026).
Art
Solo Show
Until 24 January
A display of the works of photographer T.S. Satyan, who just turned 85, looks back on a career that began with the ‘Deccan Herald’ in 1948. Satyan shot pictures for publications from ‘The Illustrated Weekly’ to ‘Time’ and ‘Life’. In 1977, he was awarded the Padma Shri, and in 1979, Unicef sponsored an exhibition of his photographs on children, titled ‘Little People’, which was displayed at the UN headquarters in New York.
11am-7pm, Monday- Saturday, The Stainless Gallery, Property No. 1 and 2, Ishwar Nagar, Mira Complex, Okhla Crossing, Mathura Road (42603167).
MUMBAI
Film
I’m Not There
From 16 January
The recipe is famous. Six actors. Seven Dylans—none of them called “Dylan". Colour. Black and white. Backwards and forwards. Forwards and backwards. Selective memory. Abstract concepts of character. Deconstruction of images and speeches. Too often, too, a film claims to offer the last word on a life. Director Todd Haynes is pretending to offer no such thing. His approach is the reflection of a life through the mirror of experimental film. It’s not a perfect experiment. At several points, it loses its strange rhythm, only to be rescued by the music itself, which is always well chosen and placed.
Across cinemas.
The Boot Cake
17 January
As an actor and film-maker, Charlie Chaplin has cast his shadow across the globe, including in Japan, Hong Kong and Brazil, says Kathryn Millard, an associate professor at Macquarie University in New South Wales, Australia. But the Charlie Circle in Adipur in Gujarat’s Kutch district stopped her in her tracks. Set up by ayurvedic doctor and Chaplin fan Ashok Aswani in 1973, the Charlie Circle keeps alive its hero’s memory by organizing movie screenings and celebrating his birthday on 16 April. Millard visited Adipur for the first time in 2005, after Mumbai film historian Amrit Gangar drew her attention to the group. It took her two years to make ‘The Boot Cake’, a documentary that features members of the Charlie Circle and two Chaplin impersonators in Mumbai.
11.30am. Little Theatre, National Centre for the Performing Arts, Nariman Point (66223737).
Music
Solar Punch
20 January
If you’ve been griping about how we’ve had the hottest December in years, you might want to make your way to Solar Punch’s concert at the Mumbai Festival this fortnight. The American band will be performing in the city as part of the Climate Solutions Road Tour organized by the Indian Youth Climate Network.
The month-long tour, which began on 3 January in Chennai, will see members of the IYCN and Solar Punch travelling through a dozen Indian towns and cities in two electric cars and a bus run on biodiesel. Comprising science teacher Alan Bigelow and filmmaker James Dean Conklin, both of whom sing and play the electric guitar, Solar Punch gigs only use energy drawn from the sun.
7pm. Bandra Fort Amphitheatre, near Taj Land’s End Hotel, Bandra Bandstand. Call the festival office on 65566649 or 65258073, email contact@mumbaifestival.in or visit www. mumbaifestival.in
Zakir Hussain Concert
21 January
The world’s most famous tabla player performs on the first day of this year’s edition of the annual Keli festival.
6.45pm. YB Chavan Centre Auditorium, near Mantralaya, General Jagannath Bhosle Marg (22852081). Passes available at Rhythm House (22842835) and Prithvi Theatre from 18 January. Call 9820835737 for details.
Dhruv Ghanekar
22 January
Patience and restraint were instrumental in the making of Dhruv Ghanekar’s debut solo album ‘Distance’. This fortnight, he will finally release the record, the bulk of which was written and recorded in 2006 at his production company Smoke’s old studio in Dadar. The composer and guitarist put the delay down to other commitments, including the setting up of his club Blue Frog and work on ‘Drona’, his first solo Bollywood soundtrack.
10.30pm. Blue Frog, Todi & Co, Mathuradas Mills Compound, opposite Kamala Mills, Tulsi Pipe Road, Lower Parel (40332300). Rs300.
Nightlife
DJs Nikhil and Pearl
21 January
Carving out an alternative dance scene across India couldn’t have been easy, but DJs Nikhil Chinnappa and Pearl have successfully created the nation’s first network of clubbers. From a one-off night in a basement club in Mumbai, they’ve brought the underground electronic music scene to life across the country.
10.30pm. Blue Frog, Todi & Co, Mathuradas Mills Compound, opposite Kamala Mills, Tulsi Pipe Road, Lower Parel (40332300). ₹ 300.
BANGALORE
Theatre
Black Tie
16 January
‘Black Tie’, one of the latest projects from German group Rimini Protokoll (whose path-breaking intervention of reality theatre uses people playing their real life selves) invites audiences to come alongside Miriam Yung Min Stein as she relates her story of growing up in Germany, with her earliest available biographical information being that she was found in 1977, wrapped in newspaper and ensconced in a box somewhere in South Korea.
‘Black Tie’ dives into the murky waters of self-definition, auditing claims of the genetics industry being able to f urnish an exacting individual “biography" while engaging in a phenomenological tussle over crucial presences and absences in Stein’s story.
In transit, the piece pushes for a reconsideration of how “good" acts—adoption, anonymous sperm donation, Christmas parcels for orphaned children—may also create widening black holes in their wake.
7.30pm. Ranga Shankara, 36/2, 8th Cross, 2nd Phase, JP Nagar (26592777). Call 25205308 for ticket prices.
Music
R.K. Srikantan
17 January
The veteran vocalist is said to be a direct descendant of Thyagaraja, in the ‘guru-sishya’ lineage. He is known for his strict adherence to the boundaries of ‘saampradayam’ (tradition).
He will be accompanied on the violin by R.K. Sriramkumar, on the ‘mridangam’ by Renuka Prasad and on the ‘ghatam’ by Dayanand Mohite. His son and student, Rudrapatnam S. Ramakanth, will provide vocal support.
6pm, Indian Institute of World Culture, 6, BP Wadia Road, Basavangudi (26678581).
Dance
Drishti Dance Festival
17 January
The Drishti Dance Ensemble opens the festival at 6pm with a piece choreographed by Anuradha Vikrant, who is trained in the Tanjore style of Bharatanatyam.
This is followed by the Thandava Dance Ensemble at 6.30pm that performs a group Bharatanatyam sequence and a performance by a troupe from the Kalari Institute for Performing Arts at 7pm. Kolkata-based dance troupe Rhythmosaic merge flamenco and Kathak in their performance at 7.30pm.
The festival concludes with a Ekavyakti (solo) Yakshagana performance by Mantap Prabhakar Upadhya at 8pm that uses the demon Surpanakha as a metaphor to measure evil and goodness in one person.
Chowdiah Memorial Hall, Vyalikaval, Malleswaram (23445810).
Art
Inheritance of Alphanumeric Characters
17 January-14 February
Abhishek Hazra stood at street corners in London last year, holding a microphone aloft during the ‘azan’, the Muslim call to prayer, and simultaneously read aloud from Bengali translations of Joseph Needham’s (a little-known British biologist who was Marxist and supported Chinese communism) works.
A video of Hazra’s work in London that demonstrates how social and political histories and contexts can collide under a lamppost will be screened as part of his show at Gallery Skye this fortnight.
11am-7pm. 82, Presidency, St Mark’s Road (65951972). Sundays, by appointment only.
CONNECT
Apply
Pro Helvetia New Delhi offers artists and professional cultural practitioners in the visual, performing and applied arts the possibility of a three-week to six-month residency in Switzerland (for artists from the South Asia region). Looking beyond intercultural exchange, Pro Helvetia will give preference to projects that demonstrate the possibility of generating follow-up projects and have an international impact. The last date for submitting applications for 2010-11 is 31 January. For more information, visit www.prohelvetia.in
Walk
Prior registration is required. Contact the India Habitat Centre programme desk for details.
8.30am. Habitat World, India Habitat Centre, Lodhi Road, New Delhi (24682222).
Eat
These chewy tomato paste cubes are spiked with chilli and dusted in castor sugar. Each bite is sour and sweet and has a fiery finish. The sugar also acts as a preservative and keeps the cubes in the tin edible to the last square. At Rs200 for 200g, it’s expensive and best had sparingly.
Weekdays, 10am-10pm, Saturday & Sunday, 10am-11pm. Ecstasy Mickael Besse, UB City, Second Floor, 207, 24 Vittal Mallya Road, Bangalore (41759191). All cards accepted except American Express.
Swim
Deepali Jain’s aqualates classes are underwater adventures. Choose from Pilates with beach balls, aqua t’ai chi, aqua kickboxing and other weight-bearing exercises she can guide you through under water.
Jain, a certified aqua aerobics trainer, conducts classes at Body Rhythm, Advent, 12Am General J Bhosale Marg, Mantralaya, Mumbai. Call 9820094323 for details.
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