A two-week-long workshop ‘The Wancho Animation Workshop’ is all set to commence next week at the North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU).
Addressing media Dr. Tara Douglas, Post-doctoral Research Fellow, Department of Anthropology, NEHU said that the workshop sponsored by University will begin from March 16 to 30.
She informed that at a pivotal phase of the project, the workshop will invite collaboration with a group of young Wancho participants from Arunachal Pradesh, a group of students of animation, and four media professionals, to decide how exactly to adapt one of the traditional Wancho folktales for the medium of animation. The chosen story for the film script is ‘The Wancho Story of the Gourd’, an unusual tale that was recently recorded in Kamhua Noknu village in Longding District, Arunachal Pradesh.
Stating that in the North East the pressure of a modern way of life threatens to overwhelm the indigenous modes of knowledge transmission whereby stories have been passed down from generation to generation through oral retellings and are no longer remembered, she said, “On the other hand, young people are drawn to multimedia and animation which is accessible to them on mobile communication devices. Therefore the objective of the workshop is to record, document, and translate a collection of the oral narratives from two indigenous communities of North East India: the Wancho in Arunachal Pradesh, and the Tangkhul in Manipur, and then to work with members of the community to adapt one selected story from each group into a short animated film.”
She said that the production of animation is a meticulous technical procedure and students from the National Institute of Design (Andhra Pradesh), Shrishti Manipal Institute of Art, Design, and Technology (Bangalore), and Satyajit Ray Film and Television Institute (Kolkata) will participate.
The workshop promises to be an introduction to the art, design, and craft of the North East, and it is the opportunity for participants to use their digital skills to bring sound and visuals together in the storytelling adaptation and to bring life to the inanimate. By this innovative process of collaboration with the community, it is expected that the diverse team will contribute their specific skills to create an engaging and highly original animated film that showcases a little-known cultural enclave of the vast North East region, she said.
