Dissecting a festival

Cultural exhibitions, most often a facade for significant political developments, need to be treated as much more than just hype ... LEELA VENKATARAMAN on a seminar to evaluate coverage of the German Festival in India which has just ended.

THE German Festival in India (Deutsche Festspiele in Indien), a delayed reciprocative gesture in cultural exchange by Germany, coming almost 10 years after the India Festival in Germany, has just ended. Spread over six months from September 30, 2000 to March this year, with almost 200 shows covering 28 cities, the mammoth festival marked the first ever event on such a scale undertaken by the Germans in another country.

Commissioner and main designer of the festival was Georg Lechner, a man as familiar with India as with Germany. His choice of programmes, apart from the compulsions of having to leave out of consideration such of those items which Indian performance spaces could not accommodate due to lack of the necessary infrastructure required for presenting them, was guided by criteria he has mentioned of what would be "useful, stimulating and enjoyable". And the incomparable range of programmes certainly had something for every taste and age.

In an unusual after festival retrospective seminar held at the Max Mueller Bhavan, New Delhi, to evaluate media coverage, both qualitative and quantitative, Lechner subjected the entire festival panorama (and his own role in it) to scrutiny of what was and what might have been achieved in terms of coverage, for the big event.

There was a strongly expressed view that such festivals, which were a facade for significant political developments, needed to be treated as much more than just cultural hype. The India Festivals were far more than what met the eye, said a redoubtable media man, for while one country engaged in disarming people of another with its art and cultural extravaganza, behind the facade the two countries were negotiating new arms deals. Hence such festivals needed to be dealt at a higher editorial level and to be viewed from the larger perspective - something that the media had not considered.

Max Mueller, Hultsch, Stella Kramrisch, Gunter Grass - the list of intellectuals who have made epoch making contributions to enhancing an understanding of Indian philosophy and art is large. The Chair of Indian Studies established in Bonn in 1818 and the Institute of Indian Studies founded in Munich in 1929, were forerunners of many such centres promoting research and dialogue between the two countries. Behind the festival effort lie ardent hopes that unlike the fizz on soda, the festival will be more than just a one time spark, with every thing after its finish settling down to a bubbleless, stale calm. The big event, one fondly believes, can act as a catalyst, its ripple effect opening up new windows of exchange between India and Germany.

Having been one of the media tribe in Germany covering the first week of the India Festival there, I recollect the slightly disoriented feeling at seeing the festival more as a cultural bash by, for and of Indians, with German media presence conspicuously absent even in the press conferences. Nor was anything said or written about the festival on television or in the local dailies - at least not during the week I was there. None of the many Germans I happened to converse with in restaurants or in the hotel lobby was aware of the ongoing India Festival. Even today, other than the occasional sensation mongering reference to India as the "other", this country merits little mention in German papers. A foreign freelance journalist who writes for periodicals in Germany, based in Pune, mentioned how the German media, which had shown little interest in the festival had however asked him if he could submit an article on the cow - (holy or unholy).

Age old impressions are hard to wipe out as seen from excerpts of a film produced under Georg Lechner's own supervision for German television, showing the Festival Commissioner exchanging conversation with a fellow German, outside a famous Mughal monument seen in the background. In the frame are a male Bharatanatyam dancer performing, with the rear left corner taken up by a snake charmer, his open basket with the coiled cobra raising its hood menacingly. It all seemed a reinforcement of the picture of the exotic, primitive orient. If this was a trivialising of India and its cultural heritage, our own electronic media did not do much better with German art. Television coverage was practically non-existent, neither Doordarshan nor any of the innumerable channels showing interest or urgency in projecting festival news. One appearance on Star News of the artistic director of the Bavarian Ballet Troupe revealed an almost embarrassing lack of knowledge on the part of the well known anchor person, who kept stumbling on the word "Bavarian" wanting to know with a light smile as to what the troupe was all about. The entire treatment was casual in the extreme, for what marked, not just the beginning event of the festival in India, but by a presentation by one of the best ballet troupes this country has been treated to - in terms of both traditional and contemporary work. Equally flippant was the clever write-up in an important daily, which said that one knew that there was more to Bavaria than just beer.

Lack of specialised knowledge in being able to evaluate German art was a point, which was talked about. It was also suggested by some media people that instead of viewing events in terms of pure art in their own right, the write-up for such events by drawing attention to the similarities and differences from parallel art genres in India, would make information more relevant for the Indian reader. Not always easy, for at times the cultural gap is yawning and one cannot easily find parallels with the Indian situation. There was also a suggestion that a crash course for journalists on German art forms, prior to the festival, should have formed part of the preparatory work. According to Lechner, one of the main reasons for not giving sufficient coverage in Germany to Indian art events (even the best of them) was, from what he had gathered from newsmen, lack of experts able to write meaningfully and do a proper evaluation of each programme. If the Indian side were to carry the argument offered by the German media, of having no experts, then little or no coverage would have been the result.

The criticism of being too elitist and not enabling enough people to people exchange, was made more than once about the festival. Were such extravagant cultural splashes really worthwhile? Would it not have been wiser using the vast sums of money spent on the festival (and Germany in the aftermath of unification is strapped for funds) for opening another branch of the Max Mueller Bhavan, which over the years, with a limited budget has done amazing work to strengthen India/German understanding? The idea was mooted by a foreign journalist. The answer to the first was that high art, by its very nature, carried the elitist tag which could not be easily shed. As for people to people contact, Lechner confessed to having no formula for ensuring interactions at the rural level, for life in the German village was very different from village living in India and he saw no meeting point for exchange. As for Max Mueller Bhavan, no expansion was envisaged and the funds, specially released to fulfill the terms of contractual obligations of cultural exchange, could not be diverted into any other channel - however useful one may deem the other channel to be.

Shrunken space for culture in newspapers was frequently cited as the reason for limited coverage for the festival. One media person reported how the boss when approached for permission to cover any programme for the paper, invariably asked "Is the event sexy?" Anything that could not measure up to a peep show was not worthy of coverage.

The Hindu was an exception in the respect it gave to culture. The paper (specifically mentioned by Lechner) was one of the few, which provided handsome coverage. But the festival organisers failed in not establishing contact at the higher levels so as to ensure a larger panorama through articles going into the possible sociological, political and technological spin offs from a festival of this type.

Why is there so much of dependence on half a dozen important dailies? Why not explore the larger field of media today with so many glossies and even serious magazines having hit the market? This point was mentioned in the deliberations. Similarly, regional language publications, which had a wider reach, should have been contacted with more zeal, it was felt. Lack of prior information through documented material, distributed well in advance, and the difficulty all media people faced in being able to secure good photographs for publication, both before and after an event were irritating factors hindering better coverage. Coordinating agencies like the Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR), the Ministry for Human Resource Development, and the SNA treated the festival as yet another event and no special sense of urgency guided the screening and enlisting of the right participants for the interactive exercises. Media in the regional languages generally ignored the entire festival.

Nobody refuted the careful selection of a wide choice of events with theatre music, dance and visual arts in both the traditional and the contemporary expressions, handsomely represented. The Film section provided great variety. Exhibitions included Contemporary Arts and Crafts, Medieval Art, "Ornamental and Figure" and Gateways to Weimar and the New Berlin. Very popular was the entertainment provided by Clown Shiven, and the children were enthralled by the Magician Ingo von Wilke. There were rare interactive workshops on "Light and Movement", "Writers in Residence", "A Hundred Years After Friedrich Max Mueller - "Congress", "Translation Workshop", "Young Researchers", Theatre Workshops, "Stimulation through Play Toys for Handicapped Children" and "Indigenous and Modern Knowledge Systems". Sports events were a big draw. Fashion programmes too merited a special slot. And most drew handsome audience turnouts. There were some events where the best representatives were not featured. But these could be regarded as the pardonable letdowns in a long event. It was interesting to see how the audience responses are coloured by sociological and historical factors. Indians have always been quick to sense racial discrimination even in areas where it is not intended. And after seeing "Tempest", a cross cultural effort with Kathakali dancers providing all strange sights and sounds of an island people invaded by the westeners, the general reaction was that the short and the dark had been used to create the exotic effect as a backdrop for the tall White actors to act against. Only one journalist believed that by giving a new interpretation to the character of Caliban, the islanders, were shown to more advantageous effect. The desire to extend the canvas of a German festival into a larger European representation was obvious in some of the dancers and actors chosen to participate in the festival. While in the Light and Movement interaction, it is the British pair of Russel Maliphant and Michael Hulls who were, by far, the best, some of non-German participation could well have been left out for all the impact it created.

One of the main problems for all the groups concerned and the audience lay in keeping enthusiasm sustained at a high level over such a long period.

A massive Hindi German dictionary is soon to be released by the Germans. The other worthwhile result was seen in some of the good publications brought out by the Festival organisers.

For many of the German participants, it was a sobering exercise to see how resourcefully their Indian counterparts improvised to manage with very slender resources. "We are a spoilt and grumbling lot. We are wiser now," said some of the German artistes.

There were, at different levels and disciplines, instances of warm exchanges. Sasha Waltz, a young contemporary dancer who lived for a week in "Nrityagram", the Dance Village, was so charmed that the family wanted to stay on. Senior dancers Susanne Linke and Reinhild Hoffmann visited Daksha Sheth's home near Thiruvananthapuram and enjoyed the work and homely atmosphere. For many Indians, the festival provided an excellent opportunity for a many sided view of a country they may never visit.

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