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HOW CAN DIGITAL MEDIA PROMOTE INDIAN FOLK DANCE TO A YOUNGER AUDIENCE?
UNIT 5: PROJECT REALISATION AND REPORT NISHA MEHTA PG DIPLOMA DESIGN FOR VISUAL COMMUNICATION
Illustrations Enakshi Bhavani (1984). The Dance of India. India: Russi J. Taraporevala. Plate 15.
DESIGN AREA
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RESEARCH QUESTION
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RESEARCH METHODS
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OUTCOME & AUDIENCE BIBLIOGRAPHY
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WHAT? DESIGN AREA
INDIAN FOLK DANCE Indian folk dances are simple dances and are performed to express joy and happiness among themselves. Folk and tribal dances are performed for every possible occasion, to celebrate the arrival of seasons, a birth of a child, a wedding and festivals. The dances are extremely simple with a minimum of steps or movement. The dances burst with verve and vitality. Men and women perform some dances exclusively while in some performances men and women dance together. On most occasions, the dancers sing themselves, while being accompanied by artists on the instruments. Each form of dance has a specific costume. Most costumes are flamboyant with extensive jewels. While there are numerous ancient folk and tribal dances, many are constantly being improved. The skill and the imagination of the dances influence the performance.
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WHY?
RESEARCH QUESTION
HOW CAN DIGITAL MEDIA PROMOTE INDIAN FOLK DANCE TO A YOUNGER AUDIENCE? Folk Dance form has always intrigued me, made me curious to understand and unveil the story behind it. With the changing time and cross-global influence, Indian folk dance is losing its essence with today’s young audience. We have 250+ folk dances across all the states. But as a newer generation we know only a few which could be counted on fingers. As a result, many folk dances are verge to extinction resulting in the loss of cultural heritage.
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HOW? RESEARCH METHOD
I tried to put down my thought about folk dance forms on the paper. Words that describe the qualities, reasons, methods, outcome, feel of the dance forms. The output of the exercise was the words, which would relate to the younger audience like togetherness, celebration, expression, interactive, connectivity, etc. I could use these words to create something appealing to the younger audience and make them interested in the folk dance. As per all the research done in Unit 4, one of the ways to save the dying art form is by making the youth interested. Something like an interactive installation. But the challenge will be to change the perception of the youth towards folk dance, making it more charismatic at the same time not losing the essence of the culture. I broke down the folk culture into words to find the elements that would appeal to the youth. Movement, Vibrant, Connected, Fun!
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MOOD BOARD
13 Folk culture spread across the festivals, paintings, music, dance etc have a common factor of Formation- small thing tied together to form something big. I found a close resemblance to the concept of Pixel in digital space, where all pixels are equals in attributes but different in character!
VISUAL LANGUAGE
India is a very vibrant country. The demographic conditions have resulted in very colourful and varied heritage. I picked few bright colours from the folk dance costumes from different regions.
DEVNAGRI SCRIPT “Hinglish” is very popular with the today’s youth. Using Devnagri script just gives an edge to the logotype. The font used here is Adobe Devnagri.
ROBOTO Roboto is a web font which gives clear readability on screens. Also the ‘R’ has the curve with goes very well with the use of the Devanagari Script
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फॊक (FO)(LK)
The Folk Dance Experience I started with The Folk Studio, but after the discussion with the tutor, I rephrased studio to dance experience. The colours are the most common among the dance costumes. The square floating around are the symbol gesture for moving pixels. The squares rotated at 45ยบ add the element of movement to it. Also, the variation in the sizes gives depth to the entire formation.
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Experimentation with shapes, colours, angles to set the styling for the look and feel of the User Interface.
Pasting squares, stripes at different angles, definitely brings out the movement. But too much of movement may result in chaos (like in the first image).
19 Experiments to test the playfulness of the colours when placed beside each other. This experiment further brought clarity to the grid structure to be used in the layout.
LAYOUT AND GRIDS
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PRODUCTION
Along with the Graphic design elements, the lot of filming was required as the outcome is interactive installation. Rotoscoping the footage to remove the background was a very tedious and time-consuming task. The scenes were shot frame by frame as per the user journey.
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Getting into technical details of Motion capturing suits and Motion Sensors.
WHO?
OUTCOME & AUDIENCE
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YOUNG AUDIENCE (16-30) IN INDIA
The most impactful way of keeping the art form alive is to pass it on to the next generation. My project is targeted at the younger audience from the age group of 16-35 yrs.’ old. Young people love to dance, move around. Some of them dance often and some don’t thinking its difficult. Folk Dance came into existence as the means of an outward expression of joy and happiness. Also folk dances are always performed in groups creating no sense of competition among the members. The values of free movement and teamwork are something what can attract the young audience.
AT K AL AGHODA ART FES TIVAL, MUMBAI The Folk Dance Experience - an interactive installation will be conceptually set up at Kala Ghoda Art Festival held in Mumbai every year in the month of February. The Festival attracts the youths from different parts of the country. It will be a perfect platform to promote Indian folk dance.
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Puliyattam
Chhau
Gaur Madiya
Mohiniyattam
Dandiya Raas
Chari Dance
Tamil Nadu
Jharkhand
Madhya Pradesh
Selected dance forms for the installation categorised as Males and Females.
Kerela
Gujarat
Rajasthan
Shad Mastieh
Thang ta
Yakshagana
Dumhal
Tamang Selo
Hojagiri
Meghalaya
Jammu Kashmir
Manipur
Sikkim
Karnataka
Tripura
STORYBOARD
The Folk Dance Experience An interactive experience that lets you virtually perform over 250 mystical/sacred folk dances from India’s hinterland/s. With the choice of your dance styles, costumes and music, this application not only introduces you to India’s rich folk culture diaspora.
But also allows you to share this truly enriching experience with your near and dear ones on social media – A few priceless moments worth sharing.frame by frame as per the user journey.
BIBLIOGR APHY
BOOKS
WEBSITE
Enakshi Bhavani (1984). The Dance of India. India: Russi J. Taraporevala.
India Mapped. http://www.indiamapped.com/folk-dance-in-india/
Simon Charsley and Laxmi Narayan Kadekar (2006). Performers and their Arts. Uinted Kingdom: CPI Antony Rowe, Eastbourne
VIDEOS Youtube Vimeo WildFilmsIndia
Wikipedia. List of Indian Folk Dances. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Indian_folk_dances Rasas 9 rasas : The yoga of nine emotions http://rasas.info/ TCH. Teaching Channel. https://www.teachingchannel.org/videos/teaching-emotions-through-dance UNESCO. Kutiyattam, Sanskrit theatre. http://www.unesco.org/culture/ich/RL/00010 Interactive Lab. Interactive Installations. http://www.interactivelab.ru/
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