Stage Talks
Stage Talks seamlessly merge the verbal and the visual, description and demonstration, explanation and enactment.
Poorab Mat Jaiyo: Songs of migration and exile from the thumri repertoire
Vidya Rao accompanied by Shanti Bhushan Jha and Rahul Deshpande
🗓 Friday 24 January 2025
⏱ 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm
Partition and the migration from one’s home to an unknown space is an aspect of Sindhi experience. This presentation will focus on this sense of separation and exile felt at being uprooted from one’s home, and having to find another space one might call home. This will be done through an examination and a rendering in music of some of the songs from the thumri repertoire which deal with just such a theme. The songs focus on the tragedy of forced migration from one’s home and the sense of separation and loss expressed as birha. The songs also deal with that other fraught separation, specific to women at marriage—the ‘exile’ from the parental home to the home of the husband and his kin.
Book design and typography in contemporary Telugu publishing
Ragini Siruguri
🗓 Friday 24 January 2025
⏱ 2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
This talk explores the world of book design and typography in printed Telugu books. Beginning with a brief history of the Telugu script in print form, it will trace its evolution through various type technologies, including metal type, phototypesetting, and digital typography. The discussion will highlight the unique challenges faced by publishers, editors, and designers today when working with Telugu digital typefaces. Through insightful case studies from local publishers, discover how economic and technological hurdles often overshadow artistic choices in layout and typesetting for Telugu books. Join this session to explore how typography shapes the reading experience, and why Telugu — a historically underrepresented script in the development of type technology — demands a specialized approach to book design and typography.
Samvaad … A Synergy Between the Pen, the Brush, and the Depiction
Radha Kumar
🗓 Friday 24 January 2025
⏱ 3:00 pm – 3:50 pm
Is there a common thread that connects the pen, the brush, and the expressions through dance? Are they all converging in a beautiful fabric to create a common story? Dr Radha Kumar will unravel these beautiful layers that evoke sublime thoughts in the listener. The session will explore the importance of Brahmaviharas of Buddhist ethics in the Jataka tales thus exploring the link between literature and the paintings of Ajanta. I will also connect the Rasa in the depictions using the techniques in the Natya Shastra.
Burn Down Your House!
Shabnam Virmani and Arundhati Subramaniam
🗓 Saturday 25 January 2025
⏱ 11:00 am – 11:50 am
Bringing forth a set of arresting provocations from Kabir in her new book, Shabnam Virmani invites us to pause and be provoked. In conversation with Arundhathi Subramaniam, she will share some of Kabir’s poetic images that speak powerfully to our inner and outer worlds, along with a few songs.
Speaking Stones: Ancient Echoes from Ladakh
Ahtushi Deshpande
🗓 Saturday, 25 January 2025
⏱ 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm
In the remote desert of Ladakh, ancient artists carved stunning rock art into boulders and cliff faces, creating a vivid record of their beliefs, culture, and way of life. These intricate stone engravings, made without any tools other than the stone ones, remain a largely untold story of the past. In this illustrated talk, travel journalist and photographer Ahtushi shares her decade-long journey documenting Ladakh’s rock art. Through high-resolution images and an engaging narrative, she unveils the deep connections between Ladakh’s art and neighbouring cultures. Her work explores the stylistic nuances, historical links, and the role of geography in shaping these expressions. The presentation offers a rare glimpse into a forgotten world, bridging gaps left by sparse historical records. With 18 visits to the region, her photographs capture the harsh beauty of the desert and the enduring legacy of its ancient people—an invitation to explore the past through the timeless art they left behind.
Living with Ikebana
Rekha Reddy
🗓 Saturday, 25 January 2025
⏱ 2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
Ikebana is the traditional Japanese art form of flower arrangement. The talk will unfold the philosophy behind Ikebana, its connect to India, its principles and how it has evolved over the centuries. Its modern aspect and how it can be used to suit modern times and homes will be shown at a live demonstration. The audience will be introduced to books of Ikebana juxtaposed with other art forms and Indian culture that have been published.
Cry for the Beloved
Omkar Bhatkar and Anju Makhija
🗓 Saturday, 25 January 2025
⏱ 3:00 pm – 3:50 pm
Known as one of the greatest Sufi works in history, Shah Abdul Latif’s Shah Jo Risalo is a prayer, a cry for the beloved. Shah Abdul Latif of Bhitai lived during the 16th century and wrote Sindhi poems ingrained in mysticism. Latif’s poetry is deeply rooted in the human experience of searching for the self – a self that is one with the nirankaar, the omnipresent, centered within yet diffuse as attar. The First ever translation of the Risalo in India from Sindhi to English by Anju Makhija and Hari Dilgir (Winner of the Sahitya Akademi Prize for Translation 2011) is now brought to the stage in an immersive poetic performance by Metamorphosis Theatre and Films. ‘Cry for the Beloved’ is a sufi poetic presentation blending movement, music, animation and storytelling with selected verse from the Shah Jo Risalo of Shah Abdul Latif.
Echoes of Resistance
Relaa Collective
🗓 Saturday, 25 January 2025
⏱ 4:00pm – 4:50pm
Relaa’s “Echoes of Resistance,” showcases how songs and storytelling serve as powerful tools for resilience and activism.
This session will feature:
- Live Performance: Protest songs, poetry, and cultural expressions addressing local and global issues of oppression, violence, and community annihilation.
We invite the audience to join in with our notes of dissent, and energize each other with messages of hope and solidarity. In a celebration of diversity, our performance will feature songs not just in several different languages, but accents and registers that fall outside the mainstream.
2. Interactive session: Exploring the intersection of art and activism and the audience’s thoughts on co-creating resistance art. Aligning with HLF’s commitment to diversity and creativity, Relaa’s participation demonstrates how culture can address pressing social and environmental challenges. Witness the transformative power of voices united in resistance.
Firefly Women
Omkar Bhatkar and Anju Makhija
🗓 Sunday, 26 January 2025
⏱ 11:00am – 11:50am
Firefly Women is an interactive Physical Theatre piece. It explores ideas of Feminist utopia(s) against the backdrop of letters written from jail by three Indian women incarcerated under a draconian law and Rokeya Sakhawat Hossain’s story “Sultana’s Dream”. In their letters to their friends, lovers and comrades, the women write about their memories of cold winter nights at protest sites, learning lessons on resilience from their fellow inmates, the numbing monotony of prison life, keeping hope alive and the need to keep the work for a Feminist revolution going, even as they are incarcerated. The piece contains excerpts from Begum Rokeya’s “Sultana’s Dream” and elements of audience interaction that invite the audience to participate in the making of a world free of oppression. The piece attempts to find inroads into solidarity, collective dreaming, resilience and hope in these dark times.
A Peaceful Movement – A Dance Theatre Dialogue
Nayantara Nanda Kumar
🗓 Sunday, 26 January 2025
⏱ 12:00 pm – 12:50 pm
A production highlighting the preservation of natural heritage through dance theatre and multimedia. We look at issues confronting the city of Hyderabad, to catalyze solutions. How do we protect our natural heritage? We begin with an informed analysis of the issues at stake. With joyful activism, congruent with the spirit of Hyderabad we explore solutions. Through movement, dance and image we convey the narrative. Do we preserve our natural heritage? The rocks of Hyderabad have stood for 2.5 Billion years – a protective mantle to the earth, a witness to history, a refuge for the humans seeking the divine, a sanctuary for diverse life forms, harbouring fragile ecosystems. Rocks play a vital role in the story of our survival. We need them. These ideas are portrayed through movement, word, and image. Will we allow them to stand or will we mutilate them?
Poets of Hyderabadi Inquilab
Music by Harini Rao, storytelling by Yunus Lasania
🗓 Sunday, 26 January 2025
⏱ 2:00 pm – 2:50 pm
Hyderabad has been home to several poets who worked and wrote for social justice. We have been heavily inspired by their revolutionary work on the ground and in their art.
This work will be presented in a storytelling format interspersed with a performance of select poems set to tune. We’ll be including and reflecting upon the important milestones of the poets’ lives and presenting known and rare poems by them.
Poets in focus – Mah Laqa Bai Chanda and Makhdoom Mohiuddin
Indian Culture in the context of Maximalism vs Minimalism
Rohit Naag, Maria Goretti, Sonam Kalra
Moderated by Manish Saksena
🗓 Sunday, 26 January 2025
⏱ 3:00 pm – 3:50 pm
Minimalism and maximalism are contrasting styles that found in many aspects of culture, including art, design, and branding. With this demonstration, we bring the relevance of Indian culture through its art and craft in the context of Maximalism vs Minimalism.
