There have been over a hundred musicians who have shared this platform and the result of which has been many interesting albums and collaborations with renowned international artists.
S. Rani is a folk singer and community leader who comes from a Dravidian Ethnic group categorised as a Scheduled Tribe (ST) called the Irulars. The Irulars are a community who are traditionally snake catchers and rat catchers whose livelihood was affected by the ban on the snake skin trade, furthermore, the introduction of pesticides had taken away their source of income from farmers for catching the rats. This led to a majority of the tribe ending up as slaves/bonded labourers. Rani is a powerful singer and a social worker with an experience of 25 years working with NGOs and also the leader of the Irula women’s cooperative society running for 15 years. Rani has also initiated a festival at Mahabalipuram that brings together the entire Irular community (around 100,000 people) from all across Tamil Nadu helping them address issues of slavery, bonded labour and education.
This project is supported by the Serendipity Arts Folk Arts Grant, that offers financial support to practitioners in the field of folk traditions in the performing arts for a period of six months. The goal of the grant is to facilitate the enhancement of the artist’s practice through further pursuance of their discipline and in turn contribute to the community and the tradition.
Duration: 60 mins
Note: The end time is approximate and may vary slightly.
Artists:
Paul Jacob
Sridhar B
P Thamizhkumaran
Jagan Jayabalan
Anandhi Jagan
Mukesh B
Rani S
Venkatesa Velliyan
Vinoth Kumar G.
K Swetha
Gopi C
Muthambal
Nagarajan Subrayan
Azad Maidan
