Chhau Dance Theater Transmission
(dance training program + 3 demo workshops)

$300 monthly investment gets us started 
$625 monthly investment supports 2 culture workers


PROJECT INFO
Pilot training program in Chhau dance theater with mentor and traditional practitioner Pradhuman Nayak to learn how martial arts, acrobatics and athletics are
brought together and performed as folk dance in eastern India (Bengal, Jharkhand, Orissa)

SUMMARY
Pampi, founder of In Divine Company, is in an exciting collaboration piloting a training program in Chhau dance theater with mentor and traditional practitioner
Pradhuman Nayak. Pradhuman grew up in the tribal regions of Jharkand, eastern India, and is trained in forms more indigenous to the areas Pampi's family
hails from. Training with Pradhuman will be an exploration in dance theater techniques Pampi last had connection with more than three decades back. Together
Pradhuman and Pampi, too, hope to lift up the Adivasi (indigenous) origins of dance theater forms and practices absorbed by Brahmanical hegemony (a
colonization effort spanning 5 millenia through caste oppression).

ARTIST ENSEMBLE
In Divine Company

TIMELINE
This project will require us meeting once weekly over 5
months. Members of my contemporary temple dance collective, In Divine Company, will be invited into the space once a month for an open rehearsal. During
the last two months, Pradhuman and I will extend our meetings in order to prepare the research manuscript and zine (as documentation of our training process,
our analysis of caste on the cultural transmission of traditional knowledge, and the historical research we will engage in order support how traditional knowledge
was appropriated by the treatises such as the Natya Shastras (the seminal manual on classical Indian dance theater, dated to 500 BCE)). If we cannot manage
a weekly meeting, we will meet every two weeks, which will extend our time through March 2020.

CASH EXPENSES
Artist design fees $ 2500 (Manuscript layout $500, Writing $1000, Zine design $1000)
+
Dancers' salaries $4000 (Pradhuman Nayak teacher salary - teaching Pampi grantee weekly $50/ (1.5 hour) session, over 20 sessions = $1000, Pradhuman
teacher prep time $50/ (1.5 hour) session, 20 sessions = $1000, split between Pampi and Pradhuman last two months additional monthly manuscript prep
meetings $100/ (3 hour) session, 20 sessions = $2000)
+
Artist materials and supplies $425 (purchase of 5 traditional chhau masks $75/each = $375, paper machiet mask making supplies $50 for make masks for
rehearsals and demos)
+
Documentation $100 (in -house photographer and videographer - a member of In Divine Company dance collective)
+
Marketing/Publicity $250 (15 hours email drafting, meme, poster, flyer design and social media campaign by in-house collective member)