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9. The Future of Performing Arts (with Arundhati Nag & Nandita Das)
Quo Vadis?
Speakers
Arundhati Nag, Nandita Das and V Ravichandar join host Pavan Srinath for a conversation on the future of arts and culture. They discuss how artists from all walks of Indian society are managing in these challenging times, and what the future might hold for artists, art spaces, philanthropy and funding, for what many may see as a low priority.
Arundathi Nag is an celebrated film and theatre actor, a Padma Shree and a Sangeet Natak Akademi Award recipient, and the founder of Ranga Shankara in Bangalore. Nandita Das is an actor, director and social advocate, a two-time jury member at the Cannes Film Festival, a recipient of the Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Government, and the first Indian to be inducted into the International Hall of Fame of the International Women’s Forum in Washington, DC.
Speakers
Arundhati Nag
Arundhati Nag is a film and theatre personality. She has been involved with multilingual theatre in India for over 25 years. She has been involved with Indian People’s Theatre Association (IPTA) and has done various productions in Gujarati, Marathi, Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Malayalam and English.
She has performed several plays in Kannada: Girish Karnad’s ”Anju Mallige”, ”27 Mavalli Circle”, ”Sandhya Chayya” (Jayant Dalvi), Girish Karnad’s ”Nagamandala” and Bertolt Brecht’s ”Hulaguru Huliyavva”. She has also worked in several Kannada movies like ”Accident” (1984), ”Parameshi Prema Prasanga” (1984) and ”Nodiswamy, Navirodu Heege” (1987).
Arundhati is the force behind the conception of the theatre space dedicated to quality theatre in Bangalore: Ranga Shankara. She is a recipient of the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (2008), the Padma Shri (2010) and the National Film Awards (2010).
Nandita Das
Nandita Das is an actor and director. She has acted in over 40 feature films in ten different languages. Nandita won accolades for numerous performances, including in Fire (1996), Earth (1998), Bawandar (2000), Kannathil Muthamittal (2002), Azhagi (2002), Kamli (2006), and Before The Rains (2007). Her directorial debut Firaaq (2008), premiered at the Toronto Film Festival and traveled to more than 50 festivals, winning more than 20 awards. Her second film as a director was Manto (2018). Based on the life of 20th Century Indo-Pakistani short story writer Sadat Hasan Manto, the film was screened at Cannes Film Festival in the “Un Certain Regard” section. In September 2019, Nandita produced a two-minute Public Service Announcement music video India’s Got Colour. The music video is about the issue of colourism and urges the audience to celebrate India’s diversity of skin colour.
Nandita has served twice on the jury of the Cannes Film Festival. In 2005, she served on the main competition jury. In 2013, she served on the Cinéfondation and short films jury.
In 2011, she was made Chevalier de l’Ordre des Arts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Government, one of the nation’s highest civilian awards. She was commended for her “contribution towards the development of Indo-French cooperation in the field of cinema.” In 2009, France released a stamp featuring Nandita Das, from artist Titouan Lamazou‘s project “Women of the World.”
Nandita was the first Indian inducted into the International Hall of Fame of the International Women’s Forum in Washington, DC. She was recognized in 2011 for “her sustained contributions to the arts and to the world as one of the most gripping cinema arts leaders of our time.”
