In August 2016, Varshita Ravindranathan and I started The Spoken Word (TSW) Movement in Chennai, with the twin objectives of providing a platform for artistes and supporting social causes through art.
It embraces all genres of performing art — music, theatre, dance, painting, sculpting and others.
Here’s a measure of TSW’s success: It has given birth to The Spoken Word Festival, a popular event with which over 100 artistes are associated.
The third edition of the festival will take place in January 2018. Every edition presents a new theme.
In the first edition of TSW Festival, in August 2016, the theme was promoting creativity among children from underprivileged background. We brought on board a band called Steps, which is from a children’s home and gave them a 30-minute slot to perform along with other bands. We also visited an orphanage, where we distributed tools that would help the children take up art.
The second edition, held in March, 2017, saw a slew of activities to promote environmental conservation. And what better place to organise this than the beach! We chose a private beachfront property of Polaris Offroad Sports on East Coast Road.
It had a theme that combined the welfare of the fishing community and beach cleanliness. We raised awareness about beach cleanliness through shark-inspired cartoons by Anju Sabu, a Chennai-based comics artist.
We worked in collaboration with the ‘The Hashtag# collective’ to create art installations using fishing nets and fairy lights.
To encourage animal rights and puppy adoption, we set up a puppy kennel for Indie pups, who, needless to say, enjoyed some well-needed love; a few were even adopted.
The Don’t Drink and Drive campaign was also a highlight of the event, where gift coupons of local cab services were distributed with information about the dangers of drinking and driving. In support of the #iwillgoout campaign for women’s empowerment, we released a flash mob teaser video and also danced out the message.
And then, of course, there were surfing, kite surfing, scuba diving, and kayaking, paramotoring, dance crews, live bands and art installation.
For the third edition of the TSW Festival, we will set up small inspirational libraries in orphanages across the city. We are also showcasing five genres: theatre, writing, stand-up comedy, music and designing.
Starting from Christmas, we will collect and distribute books at various cafés across Chennai.
Through this initiative, we hope to revive a love for reading. We dipped our toes in the water at a recently-hosted fashionable fundraiser called The Spoken Giver. While showcasing some new talents to the audience, we managed to gather around 100 books, with inspiring messages from its donors. Our target is 3,000 books.
Chennai’s recent recognition as one of the most creative cities in the world by UNESCO further inspired us to bring to the forefront all forms of creativity on one accessible platform and address the common hurdles faced by artistes, which include financial constraints and lack of opportunities.
All our festivals have been run entirely on the great generosity of the artistes and philanthropists who have performed and supported us. Our next aim is to create a virtual platform through a collaborative website. We also hope to take TSW to cafés across the city where we hope to run monthly events.
To donate books for the third TSW Festival, call 98407 38100. We also invite authors, theatre artistes, décor artistes, stand-up comedians and live bands to be part of the festival.
(Nimisha Sara Philip is one of the founders of The Spoken Word Movement)
