A final culmination workshop was organized with the Chau dancers on 5 Feb, 2021 at Maldih, Balarampur to share the outcomes of the HIPAMS project with the larger community, to listen the experience of the artists and to identify the future course of action. Around 37 artists including 5 women warmly participated in the workshop and collectively celebrated the overall progress they made with this project. The Chau Dancers presented their new production – “Mukosh Khola Mukh”...

41 Chau maskmakers including 3 women participated in the final culmination workshop at artists’ village Charida on 5 Feb, 2021. The objective of this workshop was to share the outcomes of the HIPAMS project with the larger community, to listen the experience of the artists and to identify the future course of action for the community. The artists discussed how the social media training has helped them cope with the pandemic by sharing products on social media platforms opening up new...

A final culmination workshop was organized with the Bauls and Fakirs on 30 Jan, 2021 at Baul ashram at Guskara to share the outcomes of the HIPAMS project with the larger community, to listen the experience of the artists and to identify the future course of action. Around 47 artists including 9 women warmly participated in the workshop and collectively celebrated the overall progress they made with this project.

They discussed the present ecosystem for skill transmission and...

A final culmination workshop was organized with the Patuas on 22 Jan, 2021 at Naya, Pingla to share the outcomes of the HIPAMS project with the larger community, to listen the experience of the artists and to identify the future course of action. Around 40 Patuas including 18 women warmly participated in the workshop and collectively celebrated the overall progress they made with this project.

The artists shared how the social media trainings have helped them to cope with the pandemic...

A two day digital storytelling workshop was held with around 22 Bauls on the 25^th and 26^th February, 2020 at Tepantar. The workshop focused on different aspects of digital storytelling like:

• Objective of digital storytelling
• What is digital storytelling
• Role of digital storytelling in promotion of Baul music

Social media workshops with 12 Purulia Chau dancers and 8 Chau mask makers of Purulia were organized. The participants learnt how to post photos in Facebook and write appropriate and relevant text to promote their art form. The concept of hashtags was discussed and how to use suitable hashtags was shown with example. Most of the participants did their own post in their respective community page in Facebook. Some participants have created their account in Instagram to share their...

Digital storytelling workshops were organized in January with 16 Bengal Patachitra artists and 15 Purulia Chau artists. Initially the importance of digital stories to promote art forms was discussed and some of the sample digital stories were shown to the artists. The through story-circle the participants came up with their own stories most of which are about their art

practice, village, daily life, festival etc. After that, they did...

Workshop with Baul Fakirs

The workshop was organized with a group of 11 artists who comes from different districts of West Bengal. The group had a balanced mix of both young musicians as well as senior Gurus. A quick survey at the beginning revealed that although majority of the artists heard about social media and other digital communication tools only few of them have ever used it. Artists did not know much about intellectual property rights although they...

Gurusaday Museum, Kolkata

Total 18 artists participated in the workshop. Most of them were aware about the digital platforms but only few of them have used for promotion for their art form. In the workshop artists were made aware of their IP rights. The importance of collective marketing was presented by the HIPAMS team citing various practical examples. Artists were made aware of digital storytelling as a powerful tool for promoting the traditional art...

At the beginning, the group of artists were briefed about the purpose of the workshop. The artists shared different kind of issues they face at present like – lack of acknowledgement by the photographers, videographers and other people like researchers who take photographs and publish in various platforms including social media. Artists were made aware by the HIPAMS team about the necessity of formal agreement. The importance of collective market to protect...

The team walked around the Patachitra artists’ village, interacted with the artists informally and saw their scroll paintings, listened to the songs, visited the community museum to know about the different types of Patachitra, stories and the process of art making along with tools. Later they held the workshop in the Folk Art Centre with a group of 15 participants to learn more deeply about their heritage attributes, change of context and the art making,...

Around 30 rural artists both senior gurus and junior artists from the adjacent villages assembled for the workshop at the stage of Bamanghati Chau Nrutya Pratishthan in Rairangpur. The workshop started with a performance of Mayurbhanj Chau. Later the Gurus shared how the age-old dance form originated with the help of royal patronization and how it associated with the local festivals. The research team also enquired about current market, performing opportunities,...

The team reached the heritage village in the morning and walked around to acquaint themselves with the Patachitra tradition and the other art forms which are also practiced in Raghurajpur. Around 25 participants including senior, junior and women artists were present in the library room of the village to share the historical background of their art, associated stories, current market and challenges with the research team. A 40-years old video footage of the village...

Contact Base team visited Rairangpur between 22 – 24 November, 2018 to interact with the communities who practise Mayurbhanj Chau dance, the present condition of the artist community, performing opportunities and challenges. The team met with the artists’ groups in their villages and also held meeting at Rairangpur town to share information about the HIPAMS research project. The artists understood the goal of the project and gave their consent to...

The workshop at Nimdih, Purulia was also started with a short presentation of Chau dance and Natua dance which is the predecessor of Chau. Around 20 artists including senior gurus and junior artists were present at the workshop. They shared how the dance form along with its masks, costumes have evolved with time. The artists stated that the market has changed and they improvised the stories and the steps. The Chau mask makers from Charida, Purulia were also present...

Around 25 senior, junior and women Bauls and Fakirs mostly from Nadia and Birbhum and also from Murshidabad and Bardhaman were present in theatre village Tepantar, Bardhaman. The workshop began with Baul songs that very well represented the diversity and style of rendition that exists among different districts. The songs were part of a journey of the Bauls and their songs through different period and places presented by founder director of Contact Base Amitava...

On the last day of the trip, the team visited Santiniketan, the place famous for Ashrama established by poet Rabindranath Tagore, and the Visva Bharati university, met with the faculty members from Fine Arts and Art History. The team also interacted about IP rights and relationship of traditional artists and fine art students with a group of students who were participating in a Chau mask making workshop. The team walked around the entire campus including the Murals...

The first visit to Raghurajpur, the village of Odisha Pattachitra artists, was made between 8 – 10 November, 2018 to know about the tradition, population and geographical distribution of the community, the process of art making, current market and channels of distribution and challenges faced by the community. Another key purpose of this visit was to the village and mapping families  and documenting colour making process for the Patachitra with the active...