Folk Arts Grant 2026
About
The Serendipity Folk Arts Grant offers financial support to practitioners working within the rich and diverse field of folk traditions in the performing arts. Folk traditions embody the ways in which communities express their culture, stories, and shared values through music, dance, theatre, and other performance practices. Passed down through generations, often through oral narration and lived experience rather than written documentation, these traditions reflect the everyday lives, beliefs, and histories of specific communities. Performances typically use simple indigenous instruments, traditional costumes, and familiar themes, serving not only as artistic expression but also as a means of preserving cultural identity and collective memory.
The grant seeks to meaningfully strengthen an artist’s practice by enabling them to deepen their engagement with their chosen discipline. Through this support, artists are encouraged to further refine their craft while contributing to the spirit of the communities that sustain these art forms. The grant may be used to pursue mentorship under a practitioner of the artist’s choice, including one of the jury members, fostering intergenerational exchange and continued growth within the tradition.
This edition of the grant is open to folk artists from the East zone of the country, including Bihar, Jharkhand, Odisha, West Bengal, Andaman and Nicobar Islands, Assam, Arunachal Pradesh, Manipur, Meghalaya, Mizoram, Nagaland, Sikkim, Tripura. The artists will be nominated by a jury and the grant winner will be selected by the Jury in conversation with the SAF team.
Intake
1 Artist
Grant Amount
2,00,000/-
Format
- Each Jury Member shall nominate four artists.
- From the pool of nominated artists, the Jury will collectively deliberate and, by consensus, select one artist to be awarded the grant.
- The awarded grant must be utilized within twelve months of signing the agreement with the Foundation.
- The grant amount is to be used responsibly and effectively by the selected artist. It may be allocated toward travel, accommodation, materials, daily expenses, and other costs incurred in the course of the proposed mentorship.
Parameters for Nominators
- The grant is focused to support artists who are either practicing a certain folk form over generations or are artists who are learning and continue the practice.
- We encourage the Jury to nominate artists/groups who have been working on their practice and are looking for ways to develop it further.
- Artists who continue to teach and impart the practice of their folk tradition can be considered.
- Artists looking to develop and travel their work further can be considered.
- We encourage the Jury to be inclusive in all aspects of region, religion, gender, caste, race etc.
Documents required post Nomination for final selection
- Performance/Practice Video
- Bio of the artist or group
- Audio/Video/Written document (in English/Hindi) outlining the statement of purpose.
Jury
- Anuradha Kapur
- Geeta Chandran
- Surjit Nongmeikapam
Jury
Anuradha Kapur
Anuradha Kapur is a theatre-maker and teacher. She is the founder-member of Vivadi, a cross-disciplinary group of theatre-makers, visual artists, film-makers, musicians and writers who attempt to connect practice with research in their work. Anuradha Kapur taught at the National School of Drama, New Delhi for more than three decades; and was Director of the School from 2007 to 2013. She has also held visiting professorships at Ambedkar University, Delhi, the University of Warwick and the University of Cape Town. She curated the performance window of the exhibit body.city: siting contemporary culture in India at the House of World Cultures, Berlin, in 2003; co-curated the theatre section of the Serendipity Arts Festival, Goa in 2015, 2016 and 2025; and was part of the curatorial team of the International Theatre Festival of Kerala (ITFoK), Thrissur in 2017 and 2023. Her book, Actors Pilgrims Kings and Gods: The Ramlila at Ramnagar, was published by Seagull Books, Calcutta (1993, 2004). For her work in the theatre, Anuradha Kapur was awarded the Sangeet Natak Akademi Award for Direction in 2004.
Geeta Chandran
Geeta Chandran is celebrated as one of the leading figures in Indian classical dance across the world today. She is known for having cultivated a personal vision for the form which pushes its scope beyond traditionally received knowledge to reflect contemporary reality and enhance its universality. Aside from being a prolific dancer, she is a trained Carnatic vocalist and is known for her work in television, video and film, theatre, choreography, dance education, dance activism and journalism. She is the Founder-President of NATYA VRIKSHA, NEW DELHI, where since 1991, she has fostered art education, mentoring and development of young artists. As an arts administrator, mentor and philanthropist, Geeta supports various causes and is greatly committed to arts education in formal curricula, and leads social campaigns. In her five-decade career committed to Dance, Geeta has been honoured with the Padmashri (2007); the Central Sangeet Natak Akademi Award (2016) and the Tagore National Fellowship (2017-2018). She also curated the Dance section at Serendipity Arts Festival 2022, 2023, and 2024.
Surjit Nongmeikapam
Surjit Nongmeikapam (Bonbon)is an Imphal, Manipur-based choreographer and performing artist. He was trained in traditional Indian forms/movements before developing an interest in inter disciplinary arts and experimental works. He did his B.A. Choreography from Natya Institute of Kathak and Choreography. He is one of the few dancers and choreographers in Manipur to engage with contemporary dance forms and seek to promote their development beyond the traditional Manipur culture. He is also an award-winning (PECDA) choreographer for his pieces Nerves (2014) and Folktale (2016). Surjit always tries to extract from his own dream and create from his imagination. He always wants it to come from “[his] heart”, “which move on[him]” and “closer to [him]”. He wants his work to express his different expressions as a healing process. He tries to keep his artwork alive without any fixed notation or choreography. His notation is not to be attached to one thought. Surjit creates art forms, which can be created from the unseen culture of his Manipuri roots. Artistic Director-Nachom Arts Foundation.
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