Kalakar Report

Kalakar was born out of the need for a channel of expression, and our team of 12 decided to celebrate the various performing arts by expanding our second edition to celebrate not only the performance arts, but the written arts as well. Our aim was to raise funds for our two partnering NGOs, the Dhenuki Cinema Project and the Dharavi Artroom by allowing young students like us to discover a passion for upcoming art forms such as spoken word poetry, stand-up comedy, and more.

 

 

 

In order to build a platform where creativity can be valued and expressed, we launched the first version of our online event, KalaKar Showcase, and received submissions from schools all around Mumbai. We had more than a hundred submissions across the three platforms of poetry, prose, and photography, and several renowned judges such as Gurmehar Kaur among others. The online event created a safe space for many budding artists as it enabled them to gain creative inspiration from the exciting prompts we had put up. The second aspect of our fundraising events was called Spotlight, where we aimed to garner awareness and give a safe space for filmmaking, acting, stand-up comedy and spoken word poetry. We expanded the scope of events that KalaKar Spotlight would host to introduce interactive sessions where participants could gain a closer insight on the process, of not only performing stand-up comedy but the nuances of writing and inspirations that our speakers have. This year, we were honoured to host comedian Sorabh Pant for a talk and a Q & A session, where he impressed us all with his journey as a struggling comedian and his hilarious jokes and inspirational wit. He even held a stream of consciousness session with the audience to remind all of us that comedy is derived from our own lives and experiences. For a MAD project that was personal to all of our hearts, this was truly enthralling and skill-building experience.