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 Rohan Dumbre, #KIPAF15, 24 Jan, Day-2

Santhosh Sakhinala' report- 


Rohan emerged as a performing body with a blank face, by pasting a placard on his stomach that reads “wrap me” and walked towards the people around. The viewers around were puzzled and hesitated to interact or wrap Rohan with the cello tape that he was offering. Some participant-spectators started the process of wrapping that triggered the questions that why such an act is taking place. Why this man is asking people to wrap him? Is it some sort of a protest? Or is it any theatrical act? And there were some comments made to make fun of the performance, though, the comments were not made loudly. A police man who was on duty of policing and controlling the activities of the space, shared the same mood of being puzzled and tried hard to maintain his authority. But his failure was visible at the same time in his demeanor.


The participant-spectators, who are part of the festival, encouraged some of the viewers to extend themselves and participate in the act of wrapping Rohan’s body. But the body had introduced a tension that oscillated it between random spatial points with suspended agency. 

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