'Ands '- a performance by Talin

Cartoon Natyam Series

Filter coffee and a thatta kol, His spectacles and the books, A saree and a familial tradition.

‘Ands’ explores the multiple lives we live, the multiple realities we inhabit. It is a reflection and a culmination of the varied people we become. The piece attempts to bring together and relook at past experiences, gently nudging the present. The piece is derived from Talin’s lived experience of school, gender, Bharatanatyam training and the dance theatre form, Bhagavata Mela.

What brings a saree and school together? Can a form contain comfort and discomfort simultaneously? Are stories of discomfort only stories of discomfort?

‘Ands’ is a dance theatre exploration of these questions and more.

Talin Subbaraya

Talin Subbaraya grapples with movement, theatre and writing. He was a part of G5A Foundation and Soho Theatre's collaborative script writing program, "Writer's Lab Mumbai". He was also a resident artist at Smarter Digital Realities, a residency curated by Padmini Ray Murray and produced by Sandbox Collective and Goethe Institut/Max Mueller Bhavan, Bangalore. He was also part of the Unrehearsed Artists (Virtual) Residency hosted by Nava Dance Theatre in 2022. He started learning Bharatanatyam from Priyamvada Murali and currently explores the form with Priyanka Chandrasekhar in Bangalore. Talin's current practice of the arts is an attempt to find ways to tell stories from his personal lens, thus leading to experiments with the forms he practices.

Karuna Kirtivasan

Karuna Kirtivasan is a carnatic classical vocalist, dancer, mridangist and a senior faculty member at the Trichur Brother’s global music school -TBOSM. Karuna loves exploring new territories - she studied a triple major arts course for her under-graduation, specialised in psychology for her masters and worked as a financial analyst in Goldman Sachs until very recently. However, she now has a keen interest in developing sound scape for visual arts and has collaborated on projects like “Suo Moto” a personal and political dance piece by Priyanka Chandrasekhar. Conforming with her passion for mythology and politics, she has co-created and performed solo post-modern feminist works like “Draupadi- a retelling” and “Contemporary perspectives of 4 Indian mythological women”, in which she has attempted to dance, sing and play the mridangam, all while subverting pivotal patriarchal themes.

About Cartoon Natyam Performance Series

Cartoon Natyam is an initiative by Veena Basavrajaiah designed to create a space that addresses the issues of the art world. It started with an online forum where cartoons and illustrations are used to ellicit discussions that are socially and politically impacting the artists and their practice. Taking this idea of dialogue between art, practice and audience further, Cartoon Natyam will be curating a series of live performances in collaboration with Courtyard Koota. The series will bring to the audience works of various artists who have been engaging with personal and political questions through their art.