For Art's Sake

After a successful three-day Parikrama Dance Festival held in Pune in December 2008, Juee Deogaonkar, a celebrated Bharatnatyam guru, felt a gap in the planning and execution of the management of the festival and decided to look for ways to improve her management skills in the field of performing arts. After much research on the internet, Deogaonkar stumbled upon various arts management courses offered by universities in UK. She applied to a list of universities for a masters course in Cultural Policy and Management and to her surprise, got an admission into all of them, however, she chose to take up the year long course at City University, London that commenced from September 2009.

"Our universities have a variety of courses to offer but I could not find even one arts management course. The course I enrolled for, focussed on developing audiences for artistic excellence, social benefits of engaging in art and culture, making economic sustainability or art, and creating public awareness about visual and performing art," says Deogaonkar, who is organising a programme titled 'Cosmica' on Saturday, October 6 at MES Auditorium, Bal Shikshan Mandir School Campus, Mayur colony, Kothrud. The programme is aimed at bringing various art organisations under an umbrella of the Cosmica Cultural Collective, an initiative by Deogaonkar to implement proper art management techniques for art events in the city.

In India, says Deogaonkar, most of the time, it is the artist who does all the arrangements for their performance, which bifurcates their attention into management and performance. This is where an art manager comes in, by keeping the essence of the art form and allows the artist to focus entirely on their presentation and creativity, she adds. Some of the highlights of her performance include traditional Bharatanatyam compositions such as Mallari, Ganesh Kautukam, Jatiswaram, Varnam and Tillana in which she will attempt to unfold the pure aspects of Bharatnatyam like Nritta, Nritya and Natya and perform an obeisance to 'Lord Shiva', the God of Dance.

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