Events at Ranan: addas, workshops, demonstrations and more

ADDA at RANAN | Iftekhar Ahsan - founder of, and explorer at, Calcutta Walks | SUNDAY, 3 January 2016, 5pm to 7p

space and time to engage and exchange with individuals and organisations 
that activate, energise and re-define the complex socio-cultural landscape of Calcutta

"what are you passionate about
what makes you tick, why do you do what you do?"

Calcutta. Travel. Learning. Cultures. People. Photography. History. Entrepreneurship

"I do what I do because it is a coming together of all my interests in life."

~ Iftekhar Ahsan

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Adda with Iftekhar Ahsan
founder of, and explorer at, Calcutta Walks

Sunday, 3 January 2016. 5 to 7 pm

The Ranan Workspace
(Ground Floor, 8 Sultan Alam Road, Calcutta 700 033, near Rabindra Sarobar Metro)



Born and brought up (and hopelessly in love with) Calcutta, Iftekhar Ahsan’s passion for trespassing is second only to his love for this city. Mired in years of neglect and bad publicity people fail to accept Calcutta for the great city that it is, and Iftekhar started Calcutta Walks to showcase the city in its true spirit. Calcutta Walks has now morphed into a household name thanks to his commitment and dedication to the cause of promoting a sustainable and responsible tourism business. A regular contributor to The Telegraph and other publications Iftekhar has built a reputation for himself as an explorer of the city and one of the best people to walk around town with.


Ranan believes that the performing arts should be a vital and valued part of shared human experience and society. Cities like Calcutta need spaces to connect, exchange, share, inspire and energise. Our monthly addas engage with people invested in activating the city and the extended arts community in a variety of ways, and with the wealth of ideas, processes and approaches that make up the complex socio-cultural fabric of Calcutta. The adda also contributes to making our workspace a hub for diverse creative energies that meet, stay, morph or simply flow through with honest, open conversations and debates between people, experiences and ideas. 
Email us on ranan.artsengage@gmail.com or rananidia@gmail.com for more information.

Finding us:
The venue is on the ground floor of a residential apartment building. 
There is limited parking space in the neighbourhood so please arrive early. 
Arriving by public transport is advisable and easy. The Metro stop is Rabindra Sarobar, bus and tram stops are Charu Market, Rabindra Sarobar and Bhabani Cinema. The venue is a short walk from here.
The entrance to Sultan Alam Road is flanked by a small Thalassemia Clinic and a mosque. Look for a large black gate on your right soon after you enter the lane.
In the unlikely event that you are arriving by local train, the stop is Tollygunj Station on the parallel road to Sultan Alam. We are a five minute walk from there.
If you get lost or confused, please call 8296440089 or 9830468110. We will get you there! However, phones may be on silent mode once we start - another reason to come a little early and settle in. 
See you there.

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ADDA AT RANAN - July 2015

Vikram Iyengar responds to the Adda at Ranan with architect and actress
Anubha Fatehpuria


How many times have we walked or driven down a road and been brought up short by a building that seems to have no business to be there? It has nothing to do with its location, its surroundings, its neighbours – its incongruous in every way. “Who built that, and why”, we wonder as we move on.

Or worse, still, how many times have we walked or driven down streets in our cities where every house looks like the next, every street looks like the next, and every neighbourhood looks like a generic urban landscape. Nothing to tell us visually which city we are in, what makes it unique, what its culture is, who its people are. Faceless four walls enclosing in, leaving out, without a trace of the personalities individuals who live or work there. Functional buildings, soul-less buildings, buildings without surprises, buildings without delight, buildings of brick, mortar and cement… and precious little else.
Click here for more images

How can the art of architecture work to humanise spaces? This is what drives architect Anubha Fatehpuria’s work and vision. How do you approach a space, listen to it, hear what it has to say, accordingly conceive of a design and choose appropriate building materials and methods to deliver something unique for that spot and that client? Something that cannot be replicated with a different set of variables in a different location. Something that works with the clients specifications and also reflects and responds to the locale, the culture, the surroundings.

Architecture is about siting people, says Anubha. It always has to be approached with the user / client in mind – it is not an installation or a monument. But often convincing the clients to open themselves up to new and unusual ideas can be the most difficult part of the process. There are issues of familiarity, issues of expectation, issues of what constitutes modern living which do not include looking to the past for ideas, issues of social status in terms of building materials and cost – glass and chrome, yes, how glamorous, our AC bill will be through the roof but we can afford it – mud and bamboo, no, how primitive, backward and poor.

As an architect, Anubha’s prime concern is to address how the built space – the envelope itself – can perform for you, the client? How do you place your openings, how do you allow the breeze to travel through, how do you frame the outside from the inside, how do you open up spaces to the surrounding elements even in the act of closing spaces in. Everything else that you put into the space, load it with – amenities, electrical devices, solar panels, air-conditioners – come later. Like the large ceiling skylight of a residence in a cramped neighbourhood in Calcutta – opening upwards in the absence of space around, letting in a different quality of light from above every season of the year.

Each design idea begins with a concept, a narrative of sorts that serves as an inspiration, a point of departure – something that springs from the space itself or the client specifications or a combination of elements, and something which the client often does not know. Like the concept of the sickle which has been put down for a residence in Jorhat. An oddly shaped piece of land with a bamboo tree right in the middle which the owners were willing to cut down. And a refusal to cut is – therefore the laid down sickle – and a sickle-shaped arrangement of the house around the bamboo tree as its centre. With the first rays of the rising sun falling on the front door, passing through the courtyard with the tree, over the swimming pool and into the kitchen. Entrance-tree-water-food – four signifiers of sustenance and welcome forming the axis of the home.

Or the use of sun-dried mud bricks for an eco-resort in Himachal Pradesh, the layout of which followed the contours of the hillside. Re-using and adapting a local age-old technique, combining it with equally local traditions of slate roofs and incorporating boulders in the landscape into the design to support the slanting roof over the café area.

Or a proposed three-bungalow family residence, where each home retains its privacy but where the family is able to come together around a jal kund – flowing with rain water during the monsoon months, and a stepped area over the rest of the year to celebrate festivals together. After all, in a country where traditional music, dance, sculpture, painting makes repeated and metaphoric references to spaces such as the angan, why should architecture not be inspired to think of spaces with a similar sense of poetry?

And can one take things away or re-use, rather than use material and modern building methods just because they exist? What is the point of choice and availability if one is not able to choose intelligently, creatively, economically and appropriately? The two-storied home in Barasat made of mud-bricks is held up by the load bearing walls – it doesn’t need columns and beams, so why insist on using them? In upcoming café space in Calcutta, the false walls and ceilings are ripped off to reveal old architectural work that is almost impossible to recreate today. And the louvered wooden windows from an older house, re-used as sliding window panels in the residential building that comes up in the same spot.

There was so much to hear and learn in this adda, so much to process, so much to connect to and grasp about how people think, make assumptions, make demands often without reflection and without looking around and taking in what already exists. In the discussion later, a sharing about the imposition of specific types of architecture by the British – what came to be called ‘colonial’ – as a political show of might rather than a response to what the climate and culture of India demanded. And a question from a visual artist about artists who are now moving into community based installation works responding to the needs of a specific area or people - how do architects view them?


And then – perhaps the mark of any good conversations – the slow, almost unwilling dispersal of people, breaking into smaller groups discussing specific points or branching into wholly unrelated conversations… mingling, dallying, mulling … enjoying the lingering aftertaste of an evening well spent in engaging with ways of seeing, ways of listening to and for, ways of imagining spaces that have yet to come into being.

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ADDA AT RANAN - June 2015

Sohini Debnath responds to the Adda at Ranan with vocalist, researcher and teacher 
Rajeswary Ganguly Banerjee








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ADDA AT RANAN - MAY 2015

Jayati Chakraborty responds to the Adda at Ranan with actress Daminee Basu
At the Adda at Ranan on 3 May, actress Daminee Basu shared a performance which is still an art-in-progress piece on Motherhood, from a bigger project that she wishes to do in the near future - 'Project: Stereotype'. Jayati Chakraborty responds...

 click here for more images

What is a stereo type? When does anything become a stereotype? Is this the story of one woman? Or the story of several women? Etc etc..............
So many questions are bubbling in my mind after seeing the performance on 3 may '15 at the Ranan adda by Daminee Basu (Beni). She has recently been working on 'Project Stereotype' where she has chosen to work on motherhood influenced by the pain that she undergoes by the separation from her child. The mixture of soundscape and her silent acting based on some repetitive actions led me to experience a journey of pain, happiness, exhaustion, contradictions.
Looking forward to experience more of these kinds of performance and addas in Ranan.


ADDA AT RANAN - APRIL 2015

Roy writes on two experiences with Gill Robertson and Michael Sherin - the adda at Ranan on 5 April 2015, and a day she spent at the Think Arts workshop.


Rejuvenation!


On 5th April, 2015 Ranan was delighted to host an Adda with Gill Robertson and Michael Sherin, both of whom were in Calcutta to conduct the first part of an amazing four week workshop-rehearsal process that Ruchira Das of Think Arts dreamt up and organized. (more on this later)

Gill is this wonderfully energetic, incredibly engaging, red-headed crazy person from Scotland with a loud infectious laugh, who, incidentally, formed the Catherine Wheels Theatre Company in 1999. A company that has made a name for itself creating delicious looking performances such as White and Lifeboat (picture below) for young audiences.  We were lucky enough to have Paul Fitzpatrick, from Catherine Wheels show us glimpses of these when he visited Ranan in 2012. What I would give to see one of these productions!



Michael Sherin, is an equally mad, fabulously eloquent actor and mover from Ireland, with an easy, deep sensitivity towards people hidden behind a mischievous twinkle in his eye.

So, what was the adda with them like? Well for starters it was pouring outside, but that didn’t seem to dampen spirits one bit. There was this wonderful energy and open spirit of exchange in the room. It was lovely to see so many new faces, in the Ranan space, some from Mumbai and Delhi, chomping on muri makha and sipping cups of tea. It was Gill’s great instincts as a facilitator that got everyone talking. One can safely say every single person in the room contributed something to the exchange.

So what did we talk about? Well it seemed like pretty much everything! In true adda style, the conversation started somewhere and then went of into another equally fascinating realm.

What is it like to create work for young children? How the importance of theatre for young audiences is perceived in Scotland. How these perceptions are relatively recent and how ideas about this have changed over the last 20 years. What kinds of shows are right for children? Or is the real question what kinds of shows do adults feel are right for children? Gill certainly felt that children can handle anything. She believes they should be able to see anything, instead of only having plays with morals or lessons termed as children’s plays. I was overjoyed and jumping, albeit, quietly in my head when I heard that.

So what kind of theatre should be made for children? Shows that are not patronizing, shows with high quality performances, shows with a decent amount of thought and development. Gill mentioned that it was humbling as an actor to do theatre for children, because children are not polite, if something doesn’t catch them, you will know it, and if something does, then they are with you till the end. She mentioned how it has been a huge unlearning and re-learning for her. “All I know is that you have to explore, you need to know nothing and that is when interesting things happen.”

The conversation then went on to how theatre that is not on the stage is so interesting, the charm of art in found spaces. Next we found ourselves telling stories of how different people saw the importance of supporting artwork, which included amusing stories of Viji Iyengar’s drandfather selling off antique furniture to support theatre. We shared with Gill and Michael stories of Habib Tanvir and of course Tagore. My take away thought for the day was this co-relation between art and society. Every culture’s growth in thinking and development, human growth has had a direct co-relation with the growth in the arts. Just look at any renaissance in any culture. It is so obvious when someone says it, yet how easily it is forgotten when we talk about developing a nation.

We talked of so may fascinating things, the role of artists in times of struggle, the role of arts to define an identity of a nation, art and politics, art and funding, tax benefits for artists in Ireland, (that country had its priorities right!) art and technology – fun fact - Catherine Wheels has an App based on their production White for toddlers! We debated if theatre should be filmed and distributed to mass audiences as National Theatre and the RSC have taken to doing. If film can capture that elusive and magical ingredient of live theatre.

From the broad questions to the individual questions, is there something that stops you making your art, whether external or internal? What is your process of work? Gill feels it is about trusting what you have learnt and then forgetting it so that you can be open to the people in the room. Michael loves to put himself in difficult situations and find a way to work through it because that means you have to be open to answers from the different people in the room who are making stuff with you. He says, “I like the business of theatre because it brings people together.”

I love that this evening, went through so many different issues and thoughts, I know I came away with a little window into other countries, and a new perspective on my own work.

Sibendu Das’ words as on his relationship to the arts as a non-performer really stuck with me “Watching a show or being part of a discussion like this, being part of the arts vibe touches me. In my everyday life a little bit of art rejuvenates me… like drinking cold water on a hot day”

With that thought, I must let you all know that this re-imagined, revitalized version of the Ranan’s addas and atmosphere has been beautifully thought up and created by Anindita Santra and Vikram Iyengar.

So on the first Sunday of every month, you know where to come if you want a little bit of rejuvenation!




Workshop with Gill Robertson and Michael Sherin.

Think Arts is aiming to do something brilliant, address this vacuum that we have in the city and fill it with opportunities for children to engage with art, theatre and performance. So, one of the mad plans that Ruchira Das dreamt up was to convince Gill Robertson to come down and do a workshop with people interested in doing theatre for young audiences. Not just any workshop a four week intensive workshop spread over April and September. Of course, the workshop ran to full capacity, all slots filled with people travelling from Delhi and Mumbai just to be part of it. I am so glad she organized this in Calcutta, we rarely get to see workshops of this calibre here and so a lot of Calcatta-walas were able to participate.

I, much to my sadness, could not sign up for the workshop, due to various commitments, but I did desperately want to be part of it, even as an observer just for one day. And lovely Ruchira, Gill and Michael, all said “Of course, come along”

So when I got to the workshop, which had already been running for five days
I was apprehensive whether it would interfere with their process. I knew a team spirit must have been building up and workshop spaces are sacred, trusting spaces so I worried about what it would be like to be an extra presence in their midst, to sit and observe like a fly on the wall. I didn’t want to disturb them after all.

I needn’t have been worried. I walked into the lovely Emami Gallery, which had some really super artwork on display, and then walked into their workspace to be immediately put at my ease.

The group energy was so warm and welcoming, much less than being a fly on the wall I was rather unexpectedly absorbed into the activities by everyone in the room immediately and spontaneously. The team obviously had this open and generous spirit going between them, something that Gill and Michael, who were facilitating, both emanate from their beings.

The level of play was very deep, but easy, soft, organic and flowed. Everyone was present and engaged in the room, each one with their own different energies, open and receptive.

The sharings after an activity seemed to be something they had been doing regularly, it took no time for each person to share quite honestly their personal feelings, hidden fears, secret joys and messy discoveries while doing that activity. Simple feelings, deep and complex feelings, one could see each person was on their own journey in this workshop process, and the level of support and trust for each other and yet awareness of each person’s space and journey was astounding. It was, as Gill said, a really an honest search for what the unconscious self wants to create, it was a re-connection to the child inside.

I feel enormously privileged to have been allowed to be part of this, and feel quite an amazing connection with the glorious people in the workshops after spending just one day with them.

I saw some amazing things, people exploring paint, recreating the textural feeling of playing with mud through paint, struggles with literal expression, joyous revels in the abstract, grown men and women playing with all the innocence of children, silly happy games, or really focused rolling on the ground, reconnection to themselves, forging bridges to other people, an invisible but potent umbilical chord of energy that connected a performer moving around her painting. All of it really honest, stripped-down-to-the-core work.

The difference in the same bodies in the workspace and not in the workspace hit me immediately when the session ended and everyone went to change out of their workshop attire spattered in paint. The same warmth was there between people, but added to that was suddenly a context, more of who they were, they were suddenly people with houses and lives, and all that going on. But it is amazing how in the workspace, during the workshop they were bodies, each with their own essence and own personality but with none of the noise that comes with people, as if they had stepped out of their everyday skins to a place of openness where magic can happen!


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