Dimapur | July 25 : Meet Tara Douglas, from New York, presently the Secretary, Adivasi Arts Trust, who has been taking keen interest to promote and preserve indigenous Indian Art and Culture including the North East, through the animation and digital media.
Currently at Dimapur, Tara Douglas, speaking to DIPR journalist said that in 2003, she worked with a Scottish Animation Company based at Scotland, and made animation films concentrating on the folk stories of tribal communities in Central India including Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Terming the project as successful, Tara expressed her fascination and delight in working with the indigenous community, indigenous artists, story tellers and musicians. She converted one story of each of these states into animation film and completed the project in 2006. Later, in 2007, the Adivasi Arts Trust an organization that promotes awareness of Indian Tribal Culture was started to raise funds and Tara’s animation films were screened in Central parts of India, to about 12,000 students covering 60 schools within two months time. Tara shared that the children were delighted to see the programmes and the fantastic response from the children showing keen interest in animation films encouraged her to continue with the programme.
Since 2006, Tara has made few research trips to Nagaland, currently her 5th visit, with an idea to make similar programmes, focusing on the North Eastern states. This time around she has started a project, covering 5 short animation films of 5 minutes duration. Four of them would be on NE folk stories, out of which one would be a story from Nagaland, based on Angami folk tale. Narrating about her research trip to Nagaland, Tara said that she came across a book on Angami folk tale from a library in England, which sparked an interest in her and for which she landed in Nagaland to pursue her project, to adapt the tribal art style for production of animation films, thereby generating awareness of the rich tribal culture of the Nagas.
During her stay in Nagaland, she has already given a talk on animation and screened films for the students of Eastern Academy 4th mile Dimapur. She observed that students raised intelligent questions and showed their curiosity and interest to know more about animation and digital media. Tara opined that young people everywhere are interested in digital media, computers, and internet and therefore felt the need on generating awareness by using animation as a tool to promote and preserve indigenous culture and tradition. With popular entertainment, computer games etc. old tradition is endangered, so converting some of the folklore stories into animation films might be a good way in re-capturing the interest in renewing our tradition, she maintained.
Tara who graduated from England in animation expressed her gratitude to the Department of Art & Culture Nagaland, for extending financial support for her ongoing project and also to the NEZCC, Dimapur for facilitating her project by providing her working space, accommodation and other logistics. She would be working on her project for about 3 months in Nagaland and informed that she would probably screen her animation films during the upcoming Hornbill festival at Kisama.
Currently at Dimapur, Tara Douglas, speaking to DIPR journalist said that in 2003, she worked with a Scottish Animation Company based at Scotland, and made animation films concentrating on the folk stories of tribal communities in Central India including Chhattisgarh, Maharashtra, Jharkhand, Orissa, Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan. Terming the project as successful, Tara expressed her fascination and delight in working with the indigenous community, indigenous artists, story tellers and musicians. She converted one story of each of these states into animation film and completed the project in 2006. Later, in 2007, the Adivasi Arts Trust an organization that promotes awareness of Indian Tribal Culture was started to raise funds and Tara’s animation films were screened in Central parts of India, to about 12,000 students covering 60 schools within two months time. Tara shared that the children were delighted to see the programmes and the fantastic response from the children showing keen interest in animation films encouraged her to continue with the programme.
Since 2006, Tara has made few research trips to Nagaland, currently her 5th visit, with an idea to make similar programmes, focusing on the North Eastern states. This time around she has started a project, covering 5 short animation films of 5 minutes duration. Four of them would be on NE folk stories, out of which one would be a story from Nagaland, based on Angami folk tale. Narrating about her research trip to Nagaland, Tara said that she came across a book on Angami folk tale from a library in England, which sparked an interest in her and for which she landed in Nagaland to pursue her project, to adapt the tribal art style for production of animation films, thereby generating awareness of the rich tribal culture of the Nagas.
During her stay in Nagaland, she has already given a talk on animation and screened films for the students of Eastern Academy 4th mile Dimapur. She observed that students raised intelligent questions and showed their curiosity and interest to know more about animation and digital media. Tara opined that young people everywhere are interested in digital media, computers, and internet and therefore felt the need on generating awareness by using animation as a tool to promote and preserve indigenous culture and tradition. With popular entertainment, computer games etc. old tradition is endangered, so converting some of the folklore stories into animation films might be a good way in re-capturing the interest in renewing our tradition, she maintained.
Tara who graduated from England in animation expressed her gratitude to the Department of Art & Culture Nagaland, for extending financial support for her ongoing project and also to the NEZCC, Dimapur for facilitating her project by providing her working space, accommodation and other logistics. She would be working on her project for about 3 months in Nagaland and informed that she would probably screen her animation films during the upcoming Hornbill festival at Kisama.
