2016
CURATOR
Siddhant Shah is a Heritage Architect and Access Consultant who specialises in bridging the gap between Cultural Heritage and Disability, through his initiative #AccessforALL. Shah, a Stavros Niarchos Scholar has finished his MA in Heritage Management from the University of Kent (Athens Campus, Greece) and his bachelors in Architecture (BSSA-NMIMS, India) along with a Post graduate Diploma in Indian Aesthetics.
‘Access for ALL’ aims at pushing the boundaries of physical, intellectual and social access through innovative, indigenous design and advocacy while fostering an inclusive experiential culture. The team focuses on access audits, interpretation & educational activities, inclusive outreach programs, sensitization & awareness program, braille-tactile kits, braille books and CSR based engagement programs.
2016
CURATOR
Manu Chandra is the chef partner, responsible for the hugely fun and first of its kind Gastropub brand – Monkey Bar in Mumbai, Bangalore and Delhi; the trendy Asian Gastro Bar The Fatty Bao in Mumbai, Delhi and Bangalore and more recently Toast & Tonic – the East Village inspired International restaurant and bar in Bangalore. He is also executive chef of the much-acclaimed Olive Beach in Bangalore.
Manu’s passion for food surfaced at a young age, thanks largely to a foodie family. Food, the cooking of it, the discussions and arguments around it, and most importantly the celebration of it, were so integral to his family’s normal functioning that it was hardly a surprise when he opted for it professionally.
Manu enrolled at the Culinary Institute of America (CIA) Hyde Park, New York, where he apprenticed with some of the City’s most celebrated kitchens, including Restaurant Daniel, Le Bernardin, Gramercy Tavern, Café Centro, Jean Georges and Town and also opened the now legendary Mandarin Oriental Hotel in Manhattan.
A lover of slow cooking, Manu leans towards painstakingly controlled and cooked things, a process that enables one to extract flavours and textures. On the flip side, he’s fond of incredibly fast cooking, which keeps the integrity of ingredients and freshness intact. A minimalist, he believes that removing an ingredient rather than adding one usually improves the flavour of a dish.
2016
CURATOR
Odette Mascarenhas is a food historian and critic, author and television host. Her stint as the food & beverage manager at the Taj Group of Hotels has helped her define a keen palate towards the nuances of different ingredients used in food preparations.
Her passion for the written word is the reason she has nine books to her credit. Odette’s first book, Masci: The Man Behind the Legend, which she wrote on her father-in-law, Miguel Arcanjo Mascarenhas, who was the executive chef at Taj Mahal Mumbai in 1939, won a Special Jury Award at the Gourmand World Cookbook Awards 2008.
Her ninth book, The Culinary Heritage of Goa, brings alive the kitchen tradition of Goan households all around the state. She has followed the culinary journey of Goa down the ages, from the times of the Chalukyas, Kadambas, the Vijaynagar Empire, the Muslim Bahamani Sultanate, the Portuguese rulers, to the present times and how it is all reflected in the evolution of Goan Cuisine. The book has won the Best in the World for Historical Recipes and Best Self Published Book in India at the Gourmand World Cookbooks 2015 awards.
She is the co-founder of the Goan Culinary Club – a non-profit venture which strives to preserve the authenticity of Goan cuisine and researches lost recipes of the past with local chefs and restaurateurs.
2016
CURATOR
Tanusree Shankar is the choreographer and the chief inspiration of the academy and troupe bearing her name. Tanusree, who trained for seven years under Amala Shankar, has developed a kind of choreography, which reaches out to audiences worldwide. Her choreography is not a combination of classical dances, but is original, giving concrete shape to the music that inspires it and is based on the Uday Shankar technique of “New Dance”.
She choreographed several events, including the Asian Games, the Festival of India in the USSR and the Wills World Cup Cricket Championships. In 2007, she was chosen to be the chief choreographer for the National Folk Dance Festival, assigned by the Indian department of culture. Tanusree choreographed an Indo-French Ballet called Padmavati directed by Indian film maker, Sanjay Leela Bhansali, in Paris in 2008.
A Sangeet Natak Akademi winner, Tanusree instructs master classes at Martha Graham School of Contemporary Dance and the Alvin Ailey American Dance Center. She has also conducted various workshops in Reading for the WOMAD Festival, Birmingham and Leeds in UK. Her troupe members have participated in the prestigious Edinburgh International Fringe Festival in 2001.
2016
CURATOR
Sanjeev Bhargava has designed some of the most admired cultural events that the capital has witnessed in recent times — in the areas of dance, music, theatre, art and cinema – such as Bhakti Utsav, Delhi Jazz Festival, the South Asian Bands Festival and Ananya at the backdrop of Purana Qila remains as one of the biggest dance festivals of India.
Through Seher, the cultural organization he founded in 1991, he has also discovered fresh talent from remote corners of India. Many of today’s well-known artists were given their first break by him.Sanjeev has been curating some of the most iconic cultural programmes for the Office of the President of India. The Trafalgar Square Festival in London was organised by Seher in collaboration with the Mayor of London and the GLA to mark 60 years of India’s independence in the UK.
In addition to organising the BBC Scottish Symphony Orchestra Tour of India, Sanjeev has organised some of the most important events for the United Nations systems in India. Most recently, he was instrumental in conceptualising the Udaipur World Music Festival February 2016, a world music event featuring 100 artists from over 15 countries including Italy, France, Spain and others. This festival has since become an annual event and set a benchmark for presentation of International artists from across the globe.
2016
CURATOR
Ranjit Barot is a drummer, singer, music composer, music director and music arranger. Born into a family steeped in Indian classical music and dance, melody and rhythm has always been an integral part of Ranjit’s life. He started playing at the age of 12, encouraged by his mother, the legendary Kathak dancer, Sitara Devi.
His early career saw performances with Louis Banks & the Jazz Yatra Sextet, Pandit Ravi Shankar, the maestros, (late) Don Cherry & (late) Charlie Mariano. Ranjit Barot is today on the forefront of both worlds, the mainstream popular Indian/World music and Jazz fusion genres. He is the musical director for all of A.R. Rahman’s live concerts and is the drummer for guitar legend John Mclaughlin and the 4th Dimension band.
Ranjit has also had a long career in composition and music production, working out of his own studio facility, in Mumbai, India. His strong roots in the Indian classical tradition and his own world‐view of music gave him a unique perspective on the Indian film genre. His career spans projects over the last almost four decades as a featured drummer and arranger for musicians such as R.D. Burman, right up to A.R. Rahman. Ranjit was the music composer and sound designer for the opening and closing ceremonies of the Commonwealth Games Delhi 2010, and Music Producer for MTV Unplugged (Season 1 & 2).
2016
CURATOR
Shubha Mudgal has been trained by some of the finest musicians and musicologists in India. Born into a musically-dedicated family and trained by eminent scholar-musician-composer Pandit Ramashreya Jha ‘Ramrang’, she also received guidance from Pandit Vinaya Chandra Maudgalya and Pandit Vasant Thakar. She later learnt stylistic techniques from maestros Pandit Jitendra Abhisheki and Pandit Kumar Gandharva. She also received training in thumri from Smt. Naina Devi and is thus a versatile and popular performer.
In addition to being a performer, Shubha Mudgal is also recognised as a composer. She is the recipient of numerous awards including the Padma Shri in 2000, and the Gold Plaque Award for Special Achievement in Music at the 34th Chicago International Film Festival, 1998, and the Yash Bharati Samman from the Government of Uttar Pradesh in 2015.
She has also been closely involved with several projects related to music education in India. Formerly a member of the Central Advisory Board of Education constituted by the Government of India, Shubha also chaired a focus group discussing the need for introducing an arts education program in mainstream school education during the National Curriculum Framework 2005. Shubha Mudgal was also a Nana Shirgaokar Visiting Research Professor for traditional music at Goa University.
2016
CURATOR
Lillete Dubey is a well known film, television and stage actress as well as a theatre director. She has been the artistic director of her own Theatre Company, The Primetime Theatre Company, for over 25 years and her theatrical work has travelled the globe. Over the span of nearly 40 years, Lillete has played the lead in over 60 theatre productions ranging from Shakespeare, Greek Tragedy, Brecht, Musical Comedies, to Contemporary Drama and Absurd Theatre.
The company aims to showcase original Indian writing and give English theatre in India its own voice, and just completed 25 years with over 3,000 shows across the globe with landmark productions such as Dance Like a Man, 30 Days in September, Sammy, Autobiography, Adhe Adhure, Gauhar and several others. She will open a new play, an operatic montage of the Mahabharata, at the end of 2017.
Lillete has over 40 feature films to her credit including Baghban, Kal Ho Na Ho, Pinjar, Zubeida, Monsoon Wedding and the two Best Exotic Marigold Hotel franchises to name a few. Her upcoming film & TV projects include Indian Summers Part 2 (Season 2), a ten part mini-series for Channel 4, UK and PBS/Masterpiece Theatre, U.K. in which she stars alongside Julie Walters and Roshan Seth.
2016
CURATOR
Riyas Komu is the co-founder and secretary of the Kochi Biennale Foundation (KBF), and a multi-media artist and activist working towards encouraging art education and developing art infrastructure in India. His critically acclaimed political works have been exhibited extensively in India and abroad, which include several key works that focus specially on the political and cultural history of Kerala. Riyas, who shuttles between Kerala and Mumbai, was one of two artists from India to be selected by curator Robert Storr for the 52nd Venice Biennale in 2007 and he represented the Iranian Pavilion at Venice Biennale in 2015.
Having his roots in Kerala, football seems to run in Riyas’s veins as he went on to create significant projects focusing on the game, including Mark Him First Half & Second Half, and Left Legs with the Iraqi National Football Team (2008/2010), Subrato to César 2010, reflecting on the current issues of Indian Football at Gallery Maskara, Mumbai, and Beyond Gods, retrieving the multiculturalism of French football at Centre Pompidou, Paris, as part of their “Paris-Delhi-Bombay” exhibition. In addition to these projects, he co-curated the first ever International football film festival in India at the Goa International Film Festival and Trivandrum International Film festivals in 2012.
Being at the helm of KBF he has initiated the Children’s Biennale, Students Biennale and Artists Cinema as part of the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. He is currently working as a director of programmes for the Foundation and also develops projects focusing on Art Education in India.
“The curator stepped down from their role on October 2018 due to prevailing circumstances”
2016
CURATOR
Prashant Panjiar is a photojournalist and a self-taught photographer who works independently focusing on reportage, editorial and documentary photography. A photo editor and curator, Prashant has served on the jury of the World Press Photo Awards, the China International Press Photo Competition, Indian Express Press Photo Awards and the National Foundation of India’s annual photography fellowship.
He has worked with the Patriot Newspaper, India Today and the Outlook Group of Publications until 2001 after which he has been working independently. Being the co-founder of the Delhi Photo Festival, Prashant has curated all the three editions of the festival, the latest in November 2015. In the same year he conceived and curated the first edition of Sensorium, a festival of arts, literature and ideas for Sunaparanta, the Goa Centre of Arts. Prashant takes an active interest in advising and guiding younger photographers through Nazar Foundation, which he co-founded.
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