[Reader-list] [Announcements] Open Baithak at Queen’s Gallery, British Council Delhi, Friday Sep 28

[Monica Mody]

*"Open Baithak " Performance in Poetry & Art Series *



*Location: *The Queen's Gallery, British Council, 17 Kasturba Gandhi Marg,
New Delhi

*Time:* 6.30-9 pm, Aug 28, 2007 Friday



When MtvU selected John Ashbery as its first poet laureate, airing video
excerpts from his poems on its channel and making them available for
download on its website, we cheered the news. Ashbery's poems could now
appeal to a larger (younger!) audience. And in such a cool way!



Poems +  TV + Web = Performance.



Make your own performance equation at Open Baithak . Perform the word, or
just perform.



Sign up starts at 6.30pm. Open reading/performance start at 7pm. Each
poet/performer gets 5 mins on the stage and is expected to bring in new work
every time -- and also to delight the audience by doing risky and innovative
things with it. You can read/perform in *any language*. Wheelchair
accessible.



*Baithak Theme: Love, Lies, Forgetting*



Please contact Monica Mody in advance if you have tech needs/questions, or
for more info: openbaithak at gmail.com



*Special Feature: Video Shorts by Shakti Bhatt (1980-2007) *

* *

*About Open Baithak:*

A new monthly poetry in performance series in Delhi, Open Baithak offers a
space for poets to think about new and innovative ways of presenting poetry
to audiences, and a test platform for emerging poet performers. It makes a
regular meeting place for poets from different linguistic, written and oral
traditions. It is also a meeting place for listeners and readers of poetry.
It hopes to be a place and a space where together we can make poetry better
than the movies.



Open Baithak also welcomes artists experimenting with performance as a
medium of artistic expression, including performances that draw on
literature, visual arts, music, dance, film, technological media, or what
have you.



*History:*

Earlier this year, the British Council Delhi had organized a Spoken Word
Series featuring performances and workshops by and Indian poets such as
Anjum Hasan, Jeet Thayil, John Hegley, Lemn Sissay, Patience Agbabi and
Vivek Narayanan. This culminated in an open mic evening at Sarai, where
those of us present felt the necessity for more such spaces, which give an
opportunity to poet performers to explore how performance and poetry can be
brought together, spaces where words can come alive on the stage through
ways and means ranging from music to rhythm to dance and beyond. The first
Open Baithak was held at The Attic on May 18 and the second on Aug 23.



*Our Sponsor:*

We are immensely grateful to the British Council Delhi for giving us the
encouragement and financial support to get the series up and running.
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