Supportive Environment
Local
Contexts
We want to set a bench-mark when it comes to grass-root innovations by taking a bottom-up approach where problems/needs local to a particular village or community are identified by the people of that village or community itself.
The locals then take upon themselves to bring a solution by means of co-operatism and by creating local leaders at the village level.
Ecology
Over the last 6 years we have been successful in reviving the tradition of Reyans. The local media coverage of the Reyans brought back the visibility of Folk Music and Musicians again.
Approach
Our main objective has always been reviving the Reyans – the traditional knowledge and Folk music sharing platforms – and making the Reyans as the foundation based on which our development work will be built upon.
1. Revival of traditional Reyans
The Folk Musicians of Kutch today feel very demoralised – they lost their prominence locally nor their work is recognised enough to get invitations to perform in the events.
The first step is to invoke interest locally in the villages & restore their pride associated with Folk Music traditions so that Folk Musicians feel encouraged enough to take up their practice. Till date we organized 28 Reyans, involving 172 Folk Musicians. The Reyans received wide local media coverage and the local villagers started seeing the importance of this local practice.
The idea is that a village will organize 6 Reyans in a year on their own – and Kala Varso will play the role of a facilitator and also use this as an opportunity for documentation of stories, artist interviews, the village and the event itself.
A typical Reyan involves meeting between artists and Panchayat – Panchayat taking the responsibility for organizing the event, providing facilities, and announcing and publicizing the event to the villagers. There will also be a 2 day workshop before the event between the artists and the elderly to decide the theme for the Reyan – selection of folk music and topics to discuss for the Reyan evening.
The Panchayat will take responsibility for the promotion and successful running of the program.
2. Effective Music Transmission and Creating Platforms to Perform
Talented Folk Music Artists from these Reyans, who want to advance further in their Folk Music traditions and make a living out of their craft, will be selected for further training at Riyaz Shala (Folk Music school).
The training program will be for 6 months under the guidance of a professional music director. The artists will come for 15 days a month to do riyaaz and hone their music and singing skills. As most of these Folk Musicians earn their living by doing odd jobs, they will be given a monthly stipend to compensate for the loss of pay from their work.
The only way a Folk Musician can earn income through their music is by performing at Cultural events, Music festivals, Marriages etc. But Folk Musicians today spend most of their time in labor and so couldn’t cater time to practice and hone his/her skills.
This led to the establishment of Reyaz Shala in 2015: Folk Music school for effective transmission, learning and practice of music. The focus of the training is on Sur(scale), Tal(rhythm), Lain(tempo), Voice culture, seating etiquette and to impart Raag in their music and singing.
Since the conception of Reyaz Shala project we have done 9 concerts, were part of Lakme Fashion Week (to do live Jugalbandhi with Western Classical Music during ramp walk), came as runners up at NDTV’s Bharak Ek Khoj, participated in 22 National and State events like Sahitya Akademi, Banyan Tree events, Mouth Harp Festival etc.
This initiative directly helped 18 Folk Musicians to carve out a name for themselves and are presently making a decent earning through their music. Indirectly, it created much wider impact – regular media coverage of Kala Varso events and the Folk Musicians is inspiring young folk musicians across Kutch to take up music again and are contacting us to be part of this training initiative to advance their skill and career.
3. Archiving: Audio, Visual and Written Documentation of Kutch Folk Music
Finally, the effectiveness of our work depends on constructive archiving of folklore of the region & social media presence. Currently Kutch lacks proper archive of Audio, Visual & written documentation of Kutch Music, and the legends & contexts behind these songs. The proper knowledge of the Folk Music & folklore of the region is left with only few elderly folk artists and if not documented urgently, there is danger of losing this valuable knowledge forever.
Our work – Folk Music, Culture and Stories of Kutch – is majorly audio & visual. AN active social media presence will bring these sounds & images to the outer world. This not only will propagate the idea of Kala Varso further, but will bring more recognition to Kutch Folk Music scene & draw more invitations to perform for the folk musicians of Kutch.
A well maintained pool of repository could act as a catalyst for artists – illustrators, music makers, documentary makers, researchers etc – from around the world to collaborate with Folk artists here.
Art Director Jessica Raddatz, from Portland USA, collaborated with us to interpret and illustrate the Kutch Folk song – Hali Hali Vagdni (performed below) – in her own way.
One of the projects is to collaborate with diverse artists from around the world who tell the ancient stories of the region through their own creative lens and illustration techniques.