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THE SARASVATÎ PROJECT

India

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Sarasvatî project to Kolkata

With the precious support of:
- Association Artjuna, Genève (www.artjuna.org)
- Tiljala Society for Human and Educational Developement, Kolkata, (www.tished.org)
- Association Essentiel, Nyon (www.essentiel-org.ch)
- Association Kamathipura, Lausanne (www.asskam.org)
- Prerana NGO, Mumbai (www.preranaantitrafficking.org)
- Association des amis de Jaques-Dalcroze, Genève
- Fondation Jaques-Dalcroze, Genève
- Soroptimist International Club de Nyon (www.soroptimist.ch)
- Association Niedermeyer, Nyon (www.niedermeyer-nyon.ch)
- Alliance Française du Bengale, Kolkata (www.bengale.afindia.org/fr)

And our many private donors.

Thank you all for helping us to support this project!

Sarasvatî project to Mumbai:

Naunihal Naunihal Hall Au village, avec sa mère "Mera nam Dolly hai" La fuite Le train La nuit dans la gare La mendicité Prise au piège Le travail chez la dame "In Naunihal, new family..." A l'école de danse

Please visit: www.tamiero-projetsarasvati.blogspot.com

Tamiero is a company founded by Tamaé Gennai and Pierre Deveaud, whose aim is to promote the performing arts in their diverse forms.

Tamiero already created two performances: « Grain de folie » ("Seed of Craziness") (2005) and « Tête en Lune » ("Head in Moon") (2009).

The company is presently preparing a new project called The Sarasvatî Project.

The Sarasvatî Project :

This project's idea is to give several performing arts workshops (music, theatre and movement), each during five weeks, in different Indian cities. These workshops will be offered to underprivileged children and they will lead each time to a public performance.

During their journeys through India, Tamaé and Pierre were extremely puzzled by the imbalance between the material poverty and the children's creative potential. They realized that the children were able to do a lot with nearly no means. When they do not have any instruments, they make them or they sing, their body becomes their percussion instrument, they dance... With a body and a voice, the possibilities to create are already infinite.

Tamaé and Pierre could observe on the spot that the children had a great artistic potential and that it deserved to be valued. During their artistic and pedagogic studies at the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute in Geneva, they also realized how much artistic development is connected to a child's whole development. They are convinced that artistic experience is essential for a human being to build him/herself up, and that is why they wish to launch a project leading to the creation of performances involving children who do not benefit from any support nor the necessary frame. The Sarasvatî Project is therefore to offer to underprivileged children the opportunity to blossom thanks to performing arts. Under Tamaé's and Pierre's guidance, the children will be invited to draw from their daily lives themes they would like to deal with, whether in words, music or movement.

The duo's double experience in pedagogy and arts will be put to good use to create a performance in which the scenes will follow each other in a lively and varied way, highlighting each child's potential.

In the frame of his activity as a rhythmic arts teacher in a primary school, Pierre often has to create performances with the children. To prepare those, during the weekly courses, the children learn to make themselves familiar with their body, with the aim to use it at best to move, speak, sing or play on a music instrument. The body is indeed the first instrument, and the children have to learn how to use it by developping their possibilities of expression up to the highest level.

Since 2008, Tamaé has worked at the Villa Yoyo in Versoix, an organization that offers a place to live and a working space to youth with an often difficult background (immigration, violence, ...). In the frame of this « pilote project » initiated by the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute, Tamaé had to create a course in an empty classroom and, nevertheless, to offer a welcoming and reassuring environment propitious to creative and expressive work. These courses resulted in two very successful performances. Tamaé and Pierre have therefore all the necessary experience to offer performing arts workshops, whether they propose theatre trainings or body language, singing and percussion trainings. They are used to work with musicians, dancers, actors, amateurs and professionals, children and adults, and they will surely direct these workshops with all the necessary professionalism. Contacts have already been made in Calcutta, Rishikesh and Bengalore.

During the summer 2010, Tamaé and Pierre went to India to investigate and make concrete the technical aspects of the project, particularly concerning the time the children can dedicate to such an activity, the locations, etc.

Artjuna (www.artjuna.org) :

This association founded by Tamaé and Sebastien Haye in 2005 has the aim to support artistic and cultural projects in places where the social and economic conditions do not allow the youth to develop their talent.

The idea was born around a dance performance organized in Calcutta, and it makes it possible for children and adolescents of the poorest areas to perform each year on one of the most beautiful stages of the city... This performance called Tarang (literally, «the vibration ») is prepared very seriously, and the dancers, mostly girls, train actively during the months before the performance. From now on, this performance takes place every year, thanks mainly to Artjuna in cooperation with the association Tiljala Shed in Calcutta.
Life in the shanty-towns of Calcutta is not easy, especially for a young girl: little perspective, insecurity, violence... Through artistic expression, the girls can blossom, build themselves up and free themselves from an often difficult daily life.

To raise funds, the association organizes regularly cultural events in the Geneva area (in which Tamiero participates a lot). Thus, Artjuna can give local artists the opportunity to produce themselves in front of an audience and raise funds.

The Sarasvatî Project is therefore, in a certain way, part of the ongoing work undertaken by Artjuna, that will, in close cooperation with Tamaé and Pierre, reflect, in Geneva, the activities undertaken in India during the year of workshops.

Dalcroze Eurhythmics :

Tamaé and Pierre both made their professional training at the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute in Geneva (cf. CVs). Eurhythmics is the basis of the Jaques-Dalcroze method. This pluridisciplinary approach to music learning links the body's natural movements with the different elements of music and the capacities of imagination and reflection. Rhythmic art is based on the idea that the body is the main instrument. Through audio-motor exercices aiming at setting the body to music, the pupil learns to react to music by adapting him/herself to the surrounding space, to coordinate his/her movements, to express his/her feelings, to combine his/her thoughts and his/her actions. The exercices proposed by rhythmic art are means allowing to discover music by feeling it before grasping it intellectually and by appropriating it. By varying the situations and the proposals, rhythmic art stimulates the faculty to adapt, develops the body vocabulary, thus enhancing musical thinking.

Tamaé and Pierre have been teaching eurhythmics in solfa and music courses, but they also have experimented it in the most diverse forms.

Tamaé gives courses in eurhythmics to elderly people at the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute and in a geriatric hospital. In this case, the final aim is not any more to learn music, but to provide the elderly people with a mean to get their balance back, to work with their motor memory and attention, in a playful environment and good fellowship.

Five years of applied research in this field, in collaboration with Dr. Kressig from the University Hospitals in Geneva, allowed the Jaques-Dalcroze Institute to offer the opportunity to many people to attend this type of courses in different locations in Geneva.

Pierre teaches eurhythmics in a primary school, where the aim is to develop both music and body language. Since 2007, Tamaé has created numerous performances with children. The eurhythmics exercices resulted in the creation of songs, choreographies, writing workshops or body language and theatre workshops. Pierre made numerous researches on eurhythmics at the service of performing arts and, in his diploma work, showed how rhythmic art could be an excellent education towards performing arts and how it could help creating performances. The eurhythmic exercices that develop the bodily conscience and precision are an excellent mean to succeed in transmitting an idea, an emotion, with one's body, voice, or instrument. Moreover, they develop a good relation to space, to other people, and awaken the attention to the surrounding sonorous space. All these qualities are necessary on a stage, and rhythmic art, thanks to its global approach, allows to develop them and to train "stage artists".
The approach Tamaé and Pierre will use in India during their workshops with the children will therefore naturally be inspired by and full of the Dalcroze eurhythmics.

Historical background:

Tamaé fell in love with India when she first stayed there alone, for three months, at the age of 18. She was captivated by the traditional music, dance, prevailing joy, in spite of the poverty. Captivated by the unknown, by the immense cultural difference between Europe and the Orient; just like many of our contemporary people who travel to India, as soon as she had come home, she made the project to go back there with an artistic and humanitarian project.
She visited mainly the north of India, especially the Sikkim area, Dharamsala, but also the Andamann Islands, Varanasi and Calcutta. Since then, she went back three times, last time with Pierre, whom she had transmitted her passion. Together they visited Rajasthan and the cities of Rishikesh, Varanasi and Dehli.
During her numerous journeys, Tamaé learnt Bengali (language spoken in Bengal and in Bengladesh), started learning to play the tablas (an Indian percussion instrument) and, above all, associated with humanitarian projects. Indeed, during her first stay in Calcutta, she taught in a primary school (Loretto School Sealdah, Calcutta) and worked at the Mother Theresa's House as a volunteer in the orphanage. She proposed to help out as an animator for the youngest children.
India is always present. As if a part of ourselves that had stayed there were regularly calling us.