Open Space Activities in February 2006

    

KHOJ DISCUSSION FORUM

Thursday, February 2, 5.00pm – 7.00pm at Open Space  
Open Space invites you to participate in the third KHOJ meeting. KHOJ is an informal forum to explore issues related to identity, diversity and sexuality. There will be a screening of the documentary film, SheWrite (Dir: Anjali Monteiro & K. P. Jayasankar) 55 mins, TISS (English) followed by a discussion.

SheWrite (Dir: Anjali Monteiro & K. P. Jayasankar)
A motley group of women, of different ages, backgrounds, life experiences, who had in common the desire to explore themselves and their bodies which helped them in raising a critique of what they are and what they are supposed to be.    
 
OPEN SPACE MONDAY SCREENING

Monday, February 6, 5.00pm – 8.00pm, Open Space
Open Space invites you to a screening of the feature film Khamosh Pani (Dir: Sabiha Sumar). The screening will be followed by a discussion.
Khamosh Pani (Dir: Sabiha Sumar) 101 mins.
The story revolves around the experiences of a number of people in a small village, seemingly at ease with itself, though from the start there are omnious overtones, from the past in the form of flashbacks to horrific events in 1947 during the independence period, and for the future with the arrival of two preachers/propogandists from Lahore to the local mosque.

THEATRE

Wednesday, February 8, 2.00pm – 4.00pm, Open Space
The Open Space theatre reading and discussion group focused on modern Indian drama meets on February 8. Participants will meet to read and discuss the plays Andha Yug by Dharamavir Bharati and The Shattered Thigh by Bhasa. The group meets thrice a month and is open to all. 


THEATRE WORKSHOP, SCREENING & DISCUSSION

Thursday – Saturday, February 9 – 11, Open Space
Open Space organises a three day theatre programme which includes a feature film screening, lecture and discussion and a theatre workshop for students of the dramatics dept of Fergusson College.
Screening, Thursday, February 9, 12.00pm - 3.00pm, Open Space
Utsav (Dir: Girish Karnad)
Based on the 6th century A.D. Sanskrit play The little clay cart by the famous Indian playwright Sudraka.
Lecture & Discussion, Friday, February 10, 4.00pm - 6.00pm, Open Space
Lecture & Discussion of the play Mricchakatika (Sudraka) by Arshia Sattar,
Ph. D, Open Space/CCDS
Workshop, Saturday, February 11, 10.30am - 5.30pm, Open Space
Theatre workshop with Pawan Kumar, a Mumbai based theatre expert and actor  

 
 
BOOK LAUNCH

Thursday, February 9, 5.30pm – 8.00pm, Open Space
'Open Space for the Word' invites you to the launch of Atlas - a new international novel-sized paperback magazine of 'new writing, art & image' published by Aark Arts & Crossword, and advised by a panel of internationally acclaimed prize-winning writers & editors. Apart from carrying cutting-edge original and translated creative writing - poetry, drama, fiction & non-fiction, plus occasional in-depth interviews & features it also includes selected portfolios of artists, photographers & filmmakers. 

There will be readings of poetry, essays, short stories and prose pieces from the inaugural issue of Atlas by noted poets Sudeep Sen, Dilip Chitre, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, R Raj Rao and C P Surendran. The readings will be followed by an interactive session with the audience.

Inaugural issue contains
  a) Poetry by Meena Alexander, Kaifi Azmi, Charles Bernstein, Amit Chaudhuri, Dilip Chitre, Rana Dasgupta, Keki Daruwalla, Kwame Dawes, Imtiaz Dharker, John F Deane, Tishani Doshi, Anjum Hasan, Arun Kolatkar, Jayanta Mahapatra, Leeya Mehta, Hoshang Merchant, Christopher Merrill, Jerry Pinto, R Raj Rao, Shamsur Rahman, Ravi Shankar, Arundhathi Subramaniam, Rabindranath Tagore, Anand Thakore, among others.
  b) Fiction & non-fiction by Tom Alter, Peter Bradshaw, Priya Sarukkai Chabria, Amal Chatterjee, Scott Haas, Tabish Khair, Sharmishtha Mohanty among others
  c) Photography by Rafeeq Ellias
  d) Art by Abdus Shakoor
  e) An interview with Vikram Seth - writers/artists ranging from countries such as America, Australia, Austria, Bangladesh, Canada, China, England, Finland, Germany, Ghana, India, Iran, Israel, Jamaica, Korea, Scotland, Slovenia, Sudan, Sweden, Turkey & Wales.

Author's Bios
Priya Sarukkai Chabria is a poet and a novelist. Her publications include: The Other Garden (1995, Rupa & Co.) a novel, and Dialogue and Other Poems (2005, Sahitya Akademi). Awarded Senior Fellowship by HRD Ministry for exploring the relevance of the navarasa theory in contemporary English literary practice.
Dilip Chitre was born in 1938 in Baroda, Gujarat, India. He is a poet, translator, painter, filmmaker and editor. His collected Marathi poems published in three volumes: Ekoon Kavita I, II, and III - contain all of his published and unpublished poems since 1954. He has a collection of short stories, a collection of four novellas, four collections of essays, one volume of critical writings, and two plays among his Marathi opus. He has published an anthology of contemporary Marathi poetry in translation. His other books of translations include: Says Tuka (Penguin), Anubhavamrut (Sahitya Akademi), and Virus Alert . His english poetry books and chapbooks are: Travelling in a Cage , Ambulance Ride , The Mountain , and No Moon Monday at the River Karha
Sudeep Sen is the 2004 recipient of the prestigious 'Pleiades' honour at the world's oldest poetry festival - the Struga Poetry Evenings, Macedonia - for having made "significant contribution to modern world poetry". Sen studied at St Columba's School and read literature at Delhi University and in the USA. As an Inlaks Scholar, he completed an MS from the Graduate School of Journalism at Columbia University in New York. Winner of many international and national prizes, he was awarded a Hawthornden Fellowship (UK) and nominated for a Pushcart Prize (USA) for poems included in Postmarked India: New & Selected Poems (HarperCollins)( www.sudeepsen.com).
R. Raj Rao is a poet and author and teaches at the Dept of English, University of Pune. His body of work includes poetry, short stories, plays, essays, a novel, a biography and criticism. A French translation of his novel The Boyfriend was recently published by Le Cherche-Midi, Paris, which has also expressed interest in acquiring the world rights of his next novel, Engineering College Hostel.

Day & Date: Thursday, February 9, 2006
Time: 5.30pm – 8.00pm
Venue: 5 th floor, Venumadhav Bldg, 14 th lane, Prabhat Road (Opp Income tax office), Pune 411 004

 
Open Space outreach programmes
1. Open Space continues its monthly lecture series at the Karve Institute of Social Work. The lectures will address issues of human rights vis-ŕ-vis gender/sexuality, development, globalisation and communalism.
2. Open Space a series of lectures on Development and Social Communications for students of mass communication at the Symbiosis Institute of Mass Communication, Pune.
3. Open Space – Fergusson College film club continues its weekly film screenings at Open Space.
4. Monthly documentary and feature film screenings in collaboration with the Symbiosis Arts and Commerce film club.
5. Open Space initiates a film club in collaboration with the Iranian Students’ Association, Pune. 6. Art and story telling: weekly sessions at the Door Step School study centre, Shivaji Housing Society