Creative Journeys 10: Benyamin

Toto Funds the Arts

and the

British Council Library, Bangalore 

are delighted to invite you to the tenth edition of the series

Creative Journeys

Award-winning Malayalam author 

Benyamin

will be in conversation with CK Meena & Nithin Manayath

Date: Saturday, 27 July 2019

  Time: 6.30 p.m.

Venue: The British Council Library, Prestige Takt, 23, Kasturba Road Cross 

(Opposite Visvesvaraya Industrial and Technological Museum), 

 Bangalore 560 001

Extracts from his novels (in English and Malayalam) will be read 

by the Bangalore actors Vivek Vijayakumaran & Abhitej Gupta

BENYAMIN says it was destiny, not fate, that turned him into a writer. Born Benny Daniel in 1971 to a taxi-driver father and housewife mother, he was working as a maintenance engineer in a bank in Bahrain when he plunged into the world of literature. Of his 20-odd novels, short story anthologies and works of non-fiction, his novel Aadujeevitham, which portrays the life of an Indian labourer in Saudi Arabia, won the Kerala Sahitya Akademi award in 2009. Translated into English as Goat Days, it was longlisted for the Man Asian Literary Prize in 2012 and shortlisted for the DSC Prize for South Asian Literature in 2013. He won the inaugural JCB Prize for Literature in 2018 for Jasmine Days, translated from his 2014 novel Mullapoo Niramulla Pakalukal, which describes the lives of foreign workers in an unnamed Middle Eastern country on the brink of a revolution. 

C.K. Meena is a freelance writer, author and journalism teacher.

Nithin Manayath teaches in the Communications Department of Mount Carmel College Autonomous.

About Goat Days: "Chilling account of extreme subjugation of body and mind … one of the most gripping books you’ll read."  Shreekumar Varma, The Hindu

"Very seldom in life does a book like Goat Days come along and ruin you for other books . . . You have read it and now other books just don’t compare."  Sheheryar Sheikh, Dawn

About Jasmine Days: "Benyamin’s craft of conversation-driven storytelling succeeds in revealing the tensions in a society starting to unravel."  Faizal Khan, Financial Express 

Previous speakers in TFA’S Creative Journeys Series have been Gieve Patel, Sunil Shanbag, Surupa Sen, Jitish Kallat, Sampurna Chattarji, Susmit Sen, Neel Choudhary and the Tadpole Repertory, Jayant Kaikini and MD Pallavi.

This Series provides a platform for both younger and more experienced writers, filmmakers, performing artists and visual artists to speak about the influences, impulses, processes and thinking that have shaped the art they produce

Workshop on 'Getting into Character': Call for Applications

Toto Funds the Arts

in association with Our Theatre

invites applications for a workshop on

Getting into Character

by Anmol Vellani

Venue: Our Theatre, #298, 3rd floor, 8th A Main Rd, 4th Block- Koramangala, Bengaluru, 560034.

Dates: August 17 &18 (Saturday & Sunday) 2019.

Time: 10.00 a.m. to 6.00 p.m.

This two-day workshop on character building in theatre is intended for aspiring and practising actors. Participants will be guided to search for clues in a play to develop a perspective on its characters. They will also be introduced to exercises that help to physicalise a character as well as find the character within themselves and in the external world. Exercises to ‘perform’ their character outside the context of the play will enable participants to discover how fully they have internalised the role they are playing.  

Eligibility and deadline

The workshop will be restricted to 20 participants between the ages of 18 and 40.

To apply, please send a bio-note and a short statement of interest. Please apply only if you are comfortable acting in English. Applications should be sent latest by Saturday, 3 August 2019 by email to sarita.tfaindia@gmail.com 

Selected participants will be sent two short plays prior to the workshop, which they will be expected to read. They will also need to articulate keywords for the character assigned to them, based on a set of questions. In addition, they will be asked to memorise some of their character’s dialogue before the start of the workshop.

Fee:  Rs 3,500 (inclusive of tea/coffee and snacks; participants are responsible for their own lunch.)

About the facilitator

Anmol Vellani is the founder and former executive director of the India Foundation for the Arts, an independent philanthropic organisation. He has directed theatre productions in different languages and locations in India and abroad. Anmol works regularly with performing artists on such subjects as voice, character building and script analysis, and conducts creativity workshops for corporate executives and management students. 

Toto Music Award 2020: Call for Entries

TOTO MUSIC AWARD 2020

CALL FOR APPLICATIONS

TOTO FUNDS THE ARTS (TFA) invites entries for its sixteenth TOTO Music Award for young musicians and bands. The winner, to be decided by an eminent panel, will receive a cash award of Rs 60,000.

Entries should be submitted by 27 August 2019 at the latest.

Contemporary original music from all parts of India, in any genre and language, is welcome. In the past TFA has received entries in genres ranging from rock, jazz, hip-hop, heavy metal and electronic to instrumental and folk, being sung in English, Hindi, Kannada, Bengali and several other Indian languages. Although it is never easy to compare diverse entries, our experience is that talent and potential have a way of standing out regardless. TFA tends to reward music that explores new territory in the Indian music scene in the hope that the recognition and the cash award can help sustain it. The jury comprises individuals with plenty of music experience as well as an open ear for new sounds.

Nationality

Only Indian citizens resident in India are eligible for the award. (Overseas Citizen of India card-holders are not eligible.)

Age Restriction: Under 30

Since the spirit of the award is to identify and encourage young talent, applicant/s must be born on or after 1 January 1990.

Originality & Collaborations

All entries must be original compositions composed entirely by the applicant/s. All tracks must be released under the band or artist moniker. Applicant/s must own the rights to all submitted music.

Jury

Over the past fifteen years, the Toto Music Award has come to be coveted by young musicians because it recognises excellence. It helps you to see where you stand among the best upcoming musicians in the country, and to get your music heard and appreciated by veterans in the field. The jury, which changes every year, will assess musical content as well as the potential of the artist/band.

Recording Quality

Professional grade studio recordings are not a requirement, but with recording gear so easily accessible these days, we do expect a basic standard to be met. We believe that the recording process is an important one for musicians to hone their craft. We therefore expect to hear some effort being put into the recordings and arrangements, even if they are just home recordings.

Language

Songs sung in any Indian language are welcome. However, if the songs are sung in languages other than Hindi or English, applicants are encouraged to send in translated lyrics to help the jury reach a better verdict.

Labels & Artist Management

Artists working with labels or professional management are permitted to apply. However, given the spirit of the award, we ask that all correspondence with TFA be conducted directly by the artist himself/herself instead of by the manager. Please apply only if this is acceptable to you.

How to Apply for the TOTO Music Award

The application process is fully online.

1. Go to: https://forms.gle/qgzwNSs5eW23aCwq6

2. You will see an Application Form for the 2020 TOTO Music Award.

3. Artist Details: Fill in all fields as required so that we have your artist details.

4. Music: We require you to submit 3 of your best tracks for review. You need to put them up on soundcloud.com (this is a requirement!) and the application form will accept a link for each track. The artist name shown in the soundcloud track must be the same as that of the applicant.

5. Images: 3 print resolution pictures of the artist/band, if possible in performance, will need to be uploaded in the appropriate section of the form.

Your submission should be available on soundcloud until after the Awards Ceremony in early 2020. Unless you have won this TOTO Award earlier, you are eligible to apply again, but please submit new work for consideration.

Further queries: totomusicaward@gmail.com.

The Fine Print: The decision of the TFA jury will be final and cannot be contested in any forum. We reserve the right to add your submitted tracks to soundcloud playlists that we may use to showcase and publicise some of our favourite entries. 

Toto Funds the Arts (TFA) is a not-for-profit public charitable trust set up in memory of Angirus Toto Vellani, who was intensely passionate about music, literature and films. 

TFA encourages and supports emerging talent in the arts in India.

The Toto-Sangam Residency Fellowship 2019-20: Call for Applications

THE TOTO-SANGAM RESIDENCY FELLOWSHIP 2019-20

Toto Funds the Arts, in partnership with Sangam House, is delighted to announce a two-week residency fellowship for writers at Sangam House. 

The fellowship will cover board and lodge for a two-week period at the Sangam House International Writers' Residency located at The Jamun in Bangalore. (For more information about Sangam House, please visit www.sangamhouse.org. Also visit www.thejamun.com)

The fellowship is open to anyone who has either won or been short-listed for the TOTO Creative Writing Awards since their inception in 2006. Please note that the fellowship does not include a stipend or cover costs of transport/travel to and from Sangam House. 

Applications from the following genres of writing are welcome: poetry, fiction, drama and non-fiction.

Your application must include:

- a one-page statement describing what you intend to work on while at Sangam House

- a recent writing sample of not more than 5,000 words.

Applications should reach Sarita Vellani at sarita.tfaindia@gmail.com no later than 10 August 2019. If you have any questions, write to the email address provided or call +919880623357.

This Sangam House session will run from 1 November 2019 to 31 January 2020. Please do not apply if you are not available during that time.

The exact dates of the two-week slot between November 2019 and January 2020 will be decided by the end of August 2019.

The name of the recipient of the fellowship –– to be determined by Sangam House –– will be announced at the end of September 2019 by the latest.

All applications must be sent by email with a covering note (which mentions your date of birth, your current occupation, your phone number and your postal address) and two attachments, one each for your statement of purpose and your writing sample.

NB: If you have been awarded a residency at Sangam House since 2014, you are not eligible to apply this year.