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Final culmination workshop with Chau dancers

February 2021

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" (Seeing the mask less faces) on the struggle of women Chau dancers and attribution issues of Chau dancers. It was well appreciated by the larger community. Shyamoli Choudhury who was a part of the new production beautifully explained the theme of it and asked the audience to encourage women to take up Chau dance. The Chau dancers shared how the social media trainings have helped them to take better photos and videos of their practices, performances and other events. Biren Kalindi shared that his group has received a performance opportunity by posting videos on Youtube. They discussed the present eco-system for skill transmission and commented that the resource centre at Maldih has been conducting classes everyday with senior gurus coming in every week to take classes. The Chau dancers also shared about their new Palas (productions) like COVID. There was a discussion on traditional themes and role of QR Code. The artists came up with the way forward and aspects that they would like to work on further for the promotion of their art and community like a common WhatsApp group to disseminate information and be more active on their Facebook page.
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Artists performing their new production

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Theatre specialist Sidhartha Mukherjee addressing the artists

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Ananya Bhattacharya addressing the artists

This research project, Heritage Sensitive Intellectual Property and Marketing strategies: India (HIPAMS - INDIA), is funded by the British Academy's Sustainable Development Programme, supported under the UK Government's Global Challenges Research Fund 2018-2021.