Introducing KIPAF

PERFORMERS iNDEPENDENT (Pi) was an independent artists' collective, experimenting and exploring the traditional, modernist and contemporary spaces in the cultural paradigm. The Kolkata International Performance Art Festival was initiated by Pi in 2012 to annually open up the city of Kolkata to diverse traditions of performance, performitivty and interventions. Since then Pi has got fragmented but KIPAF has taken deeper roots.

The festival aims to be a platform for dialogue between site, art, politics and culture. KIPAF acknowledges the nascent nature of Performance Art in India, and will always play a role in the pedagogy of performance art.
The festival is be held between 23rd-26th January every year.

Friday 25 September 2015

Performance by Prakash Lakshman- DAy 2 Kipaf15

Santhosh Sakhinala' report-


On the left side pavement to the Victoria Memorial gate there is a big metal garbage-bump. It was hazy and looks like a patch of dirty yellow in the late dusk and through Calcutta dust. There was something moving inside and the dust was rising from it. Some of us approached with curiosity, but of course, with the knowledge that it might be a performance. A man we discovered as Prakash was moving inside it with a long rope tied to his waist. He rose up, stood on the heap of dust and garbage, loosely wound himself with the rope then took out ten rupees from his wallet to tie at the end of the rope. He then jumped down and approached the people around to collect either the money of lowest denomination, which happened to be ten rupees or whatever interested him while searching their wallets and bags and added to the rope. It became a moving crowed as he walked around in front of the Victoria Memorial gate.After a while Prakash, and a part of the crowed with him, moved to the front of the garbage-dump where he tied the rope to the stem of coconut leaves and placed an oil lamp in the middle. He relaxed his body and poured water over his head invoking the ritual of cleansing to mark the end of the performance. 

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