CHENNAI: The sounds of the violin, mridangam and ghatam filled the air, and was broken only by TM Krishna’s strong vocals. The small audience gathered in the room followed each note with ease. This was the scene at the launch of the Sahrdaya Foundation’s Sahrdaya Creative Spaces, a black box theatre, at Besant Nagar on Friday. The inaugural performance saw vocalist TM Krishna, violinist RK Shriramkumar, Praveen Sparsh on the mridangam and N Guruprsad on the ghatam.
Black box theatre is a square performance space with black walls and black floors that allows for performance interaction. With this space, Sahrdaya Foundation, a non-profit dedicated to the arts, hopes for a more intimate relationship between the performer and audience. “On the one hand, artists will have a space in which they can experiment, try new things, pilot works in progress and reshape older works. On the other, audiences, including artists and students, get to see artists up close and learn. Besides performances, workshops, readings and panel discussions, informal and semi-formal sharing sessions — around a theme or concept or a book or a particular art form — can stimulate dialogue and generate ideas,” said Sheejith Krishna, founder of Sahrdaya Foundation.
Krishna said he hopes that this space would act as a safe and nurturing space for sharing work, for dialogue, creativity and discussion among artists and audiences alike, while bringing art forms together.
Founded in 2011, Sahrdaya Foundation was started along with artists Manjari, Jyothishmathi Sheejith, Anjana Anand and Akhila Ramnarayan. They believe that every artist is a sahrdaya, or a viewer, listener or reader, who responds to art with an open heart and mind.
“We want to make a difference in the life of the city of Chennai and the minds and hearts of its people. We want to emphasise our common humanity by affording exposure to traditional and new thinking, to timely conversations that will work towards the greater good. The arts have a fundamental role in this regard,” said Krishna. It is located at 53, Beach Home Avenue Second Street, Besant Nagar. For details, call 8939940457