Premiere Screening of "Abotani" in Arunachal Pradesh.

The Premiere Screening of the short animated film, “Abotani”, the first tribal story from the Tani tribes of Arunachal Pradesh to be adapted for animation is being held on 28 October 2015, at the Rajiv Gandhi University in Rono Hills, Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh. The Governor of Arunachal Pradesh, JP Rajkhowa is the invited Chief Guest for the Premiere Screening event.

This animation film project began in early 2013, with an Animation Workshop that was organised by the UK based organisation, the Adivasi Arts Trust, in collaboration with the Rajiv Gandhi University and the Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation in Naharlagun.  The three week long workshop introduced local participants to animation as a tool to sustain their storytelling traditions for future generations and also to communicate tribal culture to wider audiences.

The workshop was led by a team of young Indian animators: students and graduates in animation from the National Institute of Design.  It also attracted members of the Adivasi Arts Trust from the UK, who shared their experiences about the production process.  First of all the team chose a popular folktale from their Tani tradition from Central Arunachal Pradesh to develop into a short film.  As well as attending daily screenings of a wide variety of animation films made by independent artists and studios, the young artists researched their traditional art forms for the designs for the characters and world of the short film.

Abotani is their cultural hero, and in this story he quarrels with his brother Yapom. This leads to the division of the land.  After that, Tapen the Trickster Bat intervenes and reignites the battle between Mankind and the ancestor of the spirit beings.  The details of this origin myth that gives an explanation for how things came to be before there was any local knowledge of reading and writing were unraveled in discussions with cultural elders of the community.  The story was then adapted for a film script, from which the visual storyboard was developed to produce a detailed plan for the film.  The voices for characters were also recorded, to complete the plan.

Stop-motion puppet animation was chosen as the medium for the animation, as it could include the local traditions of handicraft and sculpture.  The puppets were made by British artist Jonathan Marchant, based on designs that emerged during the workshop.  The film shoot took place a year later, first in Ahmedabad, and then in Delhi in 2014, at the Lalit Kala Akademi.  The animation shots were recorded meticulously over two months by a team of students from the National Institute of Design.  Being from tribal backgrounds themselves, Wangdan, Rabindra and Kirat appreciated the story and the opportunity to bring it to life in a new medium.   They then went on to do the visual compositing, in which the characters are integrated into environments painted in water colour.

The story about Abotani is one of a collection called “Tales of the Tribes” produced by the Adivasi Arts Trust, with other stories from Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur and Madhya Pradesh.  The series is presented as a storytelling competition, young audiences will be asked to vote for their favourite story, and the host will offer a Trophy for the winning tale.  This format was explored in an earlier programme called “The Tallest Story Competition” (2005, produced by West Highland Animation, Scotland), based on Adivasi stories from Central India.  It is hoped that this new series, the first to be produced in India by traditional artists and Indian animators, will show how the animation medium can be used to tell tribal stories to local audiences that are now avidly watching commercial animation programmes on television media.

The “Abotani” film has been an enriching journey for the entire team, who found out more about the wealth of culture of Arunachal Pradesh through the project; about its current relevance to their community and about communicating contemporary cultural forms.  The film has already had preview screenings at the Nehru Centre in London and recently, at the Chitrakatha Animation Festival at the National Institute of Design, Gujarat.  The assessment will be on how it is received with audiences back from where the story emerged.  The film has been dubbed into Arunachalee Hindi for the screening, and versions in several of the Tani languages will follow so that the film can be screened in local schools too.  The Premiere event will be attended by local partners and members of the Adivasi Arts Trust. 

Press Release: 25 January 2014
Animation Workshop, Lalit Kala Academi, Garhi Studios, Garhi, New Delhi
The Lalit Kala Academi in New Delhi is hosting an Animation Workshop that began on 24 January 2014, and will run for a month.  The workshop is a collaborative project with the Adivasi Arts Trust, a UK registered charitable organisation that works to promote indigenous art and culture through digital media, including animation.

The focus of this workshop is the culture of Arunachal Pradesh in Northeast India, interpreted through the medium of stop motion puppet animation.  The aim during the month ahead is to complete all the animation for a short film based on an indigenous folktale from central Arunachal Pradesh.  The story is a tale of the exploits of the mythical hero Abotani, who is acknowledged as the first ancestor of the Tani group of tribes.  As the story goes, Abotani was close to his brother, Yapom at the beginning of time.  The brothers lived side by side in traditional bamboo huts and, while all the domestic animals belonged to Abotani, the wild ones belonged to Yapom.  In the typical way, Abotani’s animals stray into Yapom’s yard and that is the beginning of strife that separates the two forever. When the conflict is reignited by Tapeng the trickster bat, the great spirit of the Sky and Earth appears to mediate - and lay down the rules.  Arunachali folktales are replete with spirits that are also intrinsic to the indigenous beliefs; For those of the Galo tribe, it is the traditional priest or Nyibo, who mediates between the spirits and mankind. 

The Abotani film has been a collaborative project from its conception. A year ago, the Adivasi Arts Trust partnered with the Rajiv Gandhi University and the Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation in Arunachal Pradesh for an Animation Workshop held in Naharlagun, Arunachal Pradesh to choose and develop this traditional folktale for the short film for the Tales of the Tribes collection that is currently in production by the Trust, and showcases other animated stories from Nagaland, Manipur and Sikkim.   The Abotani story is well known, and it was documented by Verrier Elwin in his book Myths of the Northeast Frontier of India (1958). Crucial decisions were made by a team of local participants, cultural advisors and animators on how to represent the characters visually and communicate the story, and at the time stop motion was chosen a technique most appropriate to the traditional skills of sculpture, bamboo work, weaving and jewellry.  The final animation puppets constructed by British animation model maker Jonathan Marchant for the film, are based on local designs.

The animated movement is being created in the workshop at the Lalit Kala Academi at Garhi Studios by two students of the Animation Film Design course at the National Institute of Design.  As both are from indigenous backgrounds (Wangdan is from Arunachal Pradesh and Rabindra is from Jharkhand), they welcomed the opportunity to explore how indigenous culture could be adapted for animation.   At least ten workshop participants have also been invited by the Academi to observe the animation process.  These young people from across India are also involved in the field of art, either as students or as practicing artists.  The workshop programme includes presentations, interactive sessions and screenings of animation films made by artists internationally and by minority communities in other parts of the world.

The workshop is open to visitors from 11am to 5pm from Monday to Saturday.



Press Release: Event to Celebrate the Art and Culture of Northeast India, at the Nehru Centre, 2013
6 August 2013

The Celebration of the Art and Culture of Northeast India that took place on 6 August 2013 at the Nehru Centre in London showed that there is a growing interest and network from the remote corner of India. Organised by the UK registered charity, the Adivasi Arts Trust, the event was a follow-on from a similar happening held at the same venue last year- as Secretary of the Trust, Tara Douglas explained - though this time the focus was on an animation project in Arunachal Pradesh, a state that borders Bhutan, China and Myanmar.

Historian Dr Bianca Son, whose area of expertise is the Imperial border running between the Chin Hills of Burma and Mizoram and Manipur of Northeast India, provided an introduction to representation during the colonial period, where the indigenous populations were depicted as savage, head-hunting, naked and in need of reform – thus justifying the eschewing exploitation.
Increased awareness of the region is bringing demands for more sensitive and updated approaches to representation that account for the tremendous changes that have been experienced as the legacy of colonialism. Animation has been shown to be a medium that is already popular with young people in these areas through television entertainment, and the question is whether it can it be used by the same young people for self-representation. Researcher Tara Douglas, who comes with a background in animation, is currently exploring the use of animation as a tool to engage with indigenous communities. She provided some details about the project, called “Tales of the Tribes”, for which she is working to produce a collection of five short animated tribal folktales: Four of the films focus on the Northeast region, with stories from Nagaland, Sikkim, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.
Increased awareness of the region is bringing demands for more sensitive and updated approaches to representation that account for the tremendous changes that have been experienced as the legacy of colonialism. Animation has been shown to be a medium that is already popular with young people in these areas through television entertainment, and the question is whether it can it be used by the same young people for self-representation. Researcher Tara Douglas, who comes with a background in animation, is currently exploring the use of animation as a tool to engage with indigenous communities. She provided some details about the project, called “Tales of the Tribes”, for which she is working to produce a collection of five short animated tribal folktales: Four of the films focus on the Northeast region, with stories from Nagaland, Sikkim, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh.

These films are developed in partnership with local communities through a series of regional animation workshops, and Jonathan Marchant, a British artist and animation enthusiast has volunteered as an animation trainer during the most recent workshop held in Arunachal Pradesh in January. Jonathan, a colleague of Tara’s from student days at Art College, attended the event at the Nehru Centre and presented his interpretation of the animation workshop process that he had been a part of, with young people from several of the tribes of Arunachal Pradesh. This particular film uses the animation technique of stop-motion, with animation characters made as articulated puppets using materials such as aluminum wire, foam and latex. These are then filmed by meticulously capturing single frames, combining digital technology with handmade artwork, in the exploration of a style that is representational of the rich material culture of the region, while also appropriate for small scale production.

The event also provided Jasleen Anand, a young artist with Punjabi origins an opportunity to show images of some of her artwork that has been inspired by childhood experiences in Nagaland. The event concluded with a general discussion and refreshments sponsored by Gina Douglas, a member of the Adivasi Arts Trust.

Press Release:  Animation Workshop in Arunachal Pradesh

16 November 2012

The Rajiv Gandhi University and the Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation  in Itanagar are collaborating with the UK based Adivasi Arts Trust for a three week long Animation Workshop to be held in Itanagar, Arunachal Pradesh from 3-24 January 2013.

This is the first such workshop to take place in the remote state of Arunachal Pradesh.  It will provide local participants from the tribes of Arunachal the opportunity and environment to explore their own cultural heritage for stories and artistic inspiration for a short animation film to represent the vast north eastern state in a collection of animated tribal folktales, Tales of the Tribes; Most of the films in this collection focus on the northeast region, with other stories from Sikkim, Nagaland and Manipur. 

Tribal folktales from Arunachal Pradesh were documented by Dr Verrier Elwin for two books, Myths of the Northeast Frontier of India, (1958, Munshiram Manoharlal Publishers) and A New Book of Tribal Fiction, (1970, Govt of Arunachal Pradesh).  Few other books on folktales from Arunachal are available, but the stories collected by Elwin have ignited a fascination for the "sylvan spirits"  (Bomchak Riba 2010) of the indigenous faiths of the tribes of Arunachal.   During the workshop one favorite story will be selected by participants:  The story will then go through transformation into a film script and a storyboard, to interpret it visually shot by shot.   As it becomes animated it will also combine sound and movement. 

A team of 3D animators are making plans to visit the workshop to show local artists how to build articulated puppets that can be moved and filmed frame by frame, to give the appearance of life.  The artists in turn will help the animators understand the cultural details of the story and they will decide the look of their characters in the film.  Although the workshop does not provide enough time to complete the five minute long animation film which is expected to require several months of meticulous work, the animators will leave Arunachal Pradesh with a solid plan for the film, which can then be executed with some additional funding.

“Animation just might be the right tool to engage young indigenous people in the preservation and revitalization of their culture” explains the coordinator of the workshop, Ms Tara Douglas, who is also the Secretary of the Adivasi Arts Trust.  “It is new, exciting and dynamic.  Children all over the world enjoy animation, so why shouldn’t children in Arunachal see their own stories in animation too?” 
But it will be hard to choose one story from the 26 major tribes of Arunachal.  Hopefully this workshop can inspire the young people and show that it is a good idea that deserves Government support.  “The film will also promote the culture of Arunachal Pradesh beyond India”, Tara adds.  “The Adivasi Arts Trust has many contacts with Indian organisations and groups in the United Kingdom and they also enjoy animated tribal folktales.”

Artists, musicians and committed young people from Arunachal Pradesh are invited to get in touch with the Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation, and join the workshop.

The Centre for Cultural Research and Documentation

Tel number: +91 98560 60838