KIPAF 15- Press Release

Pi (Performers Independent) Presents

Kolkata International Performance Art Festival (KIPAF), 2015

KIPAF(Kolkata International Performance Art Festival) is an annual event organized by Performers independent (Pi). The festival was initiated in 2012 to annually open up the city of Kolkata to diverse traditions of performance and interventions. 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. KIPAF 13 and 14 have got participation from artist Bangladesh, Nepal, Philippines, Japan, Israel, Belgium & various parts of India. The Festival happens every year from 23rd to 26th January.

With the recognition of political differences, the spaces of and for contestations grow that provokes cultural articulations. Space as a site, stage and location is imploding with the potential to contradict and contest the established power relations and cultural desires. Performance art aids us to intervene in those socio-cultural desires and make evident the possible alternative modes of thinking and being, where being is a condition of constant formation. The KIPAF 2015 thus focused on the thematic "Contesting Spaces".

Figuratively, the city of Kolkata today stands between an aspiration for neo liberal future—to be a global city, and an imagination which revolts against the idea, along with anxiety about the widespread violence that would ensue. Available political discourses represent this moment of flux to make a case in favor of or against development.  KIPAF see this  ‘tussle’ as living proof  of the politically conscious, represented in their mundane expressions of resistance, as the city seeks to live up to another surge of global modernism. One of the sites for widely experiencing this politically rich content is Kolkata's street culture.

Developing an alternate mode of fundraising, Performers Independent did extensive (over 30) street paintings all over the city interacting and raising funds from the citizens.

There was a 3 day workshop initiated by Murari Cheerot , in which artists from the city participated, along with visiting international artists.

This year there are students from KAlA Bhavan Shantiniketan, Fine Arts College Surat, Kashhmir Art College travelling to Kolkata, as observers and participants of the Open Secton. KIPAF 15 is shaping up as a never before event in the history of Indian Art.

Kipaf15 will take place at the following venues

1. College Square complex

2. Nandan-Akademy of fine arts complex

3. Theater For Experiments in New Technologies (Near Deshapriya Park)

4. Various other public places in the city

 Last Year we did a ‘Children Art Exhibition’ at Chitrakoot Art Gallery in the month of March. This year we propose to do a seminar on directions in Performative Practices in Contemporary India .

KIPAF 15 has artists from Australia , Switzerland, Dominican Republic , United States of America, Bangladesh, Japan, Italy and various parts of India. 

KIPAF is presented by Performers independent (Pi), which is an independent artists' collective active from 2011, experimenting and exploring the traditional, modernist and contemporary spaces in the cultural paradigm.

Please find the Tentative and Final Schedule of KIPAF 15 below

Performers independent

Presents KIPAF

KIPAF 2015


TENTATIVE  and  Final SCHEDULE
23^rd to 26^th January

·          DAY -1

 23 JANUARY 2015 

·         
FIRST MEET 11AM VICTORIA MEMORIAL BACK GATE  (PG SIDE)

• ·         LUNCH @ PROSENJIT’S(IN FRONT OF ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS)(SITE)
• ·         WALK TO B.B.D.BAG TRAM DEPOT
• ·         TRAM RIDE TO COLLEGE STREET-COLLEGE SQUARE(SITE)

·         DISPERSE

·          DAY-2

24 JANUARY 2015 

• ·         AFTER LUNCH MEET  & OPEN PERFORMANCE SESSION
• ·         4PM @PROSENJIT’S(IN FRONT OF ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS)(SITE)
• ·         DISPERSE

·          DAY-3(FINAL PERFORMANCE  DAY1)

 25 JANUARY 2015 

• ·         MORNING- NANDAN-ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS AREA
• ·         LUNCH @ PROSENJIT’S(IN FRONT OF ACADEMY OF FINE ARTS)(SITE)
• ·         METRO TO COLLEGE STREET
• ·         POST LUNCH SESSION
• ·         COLLEGE STREET AND COLLEGE SQUARE AREA

     DAY-4(FINAL PERFORMANCE DAY2)

 26 JANUARY 2015 

• MORNING TILL THE END -         TENT (THEATER FOR EXPERIMENTS IN NEW TECHNOLOGIES). Four Bipin Pal Roard.  Lansdown Deshapriya Park Crossing

CONTACT NUMBERS 

09163241238(Taufik riaz)/09836765564(Uma)/09836352770(Chimuk)

(FOR FURTHER INFO CONTACT AT kipaf2013@gmail.com)