Music video shot at FTII Pune during lockdown celebrates Tamil and other folk traditions

CHENNAI: Shot by a Film and Television Institute of India (

FTII

) Pune faculty member during

lockdown

, the music video “Maya Nadhi” celebrates the diversity and rootedness of traditional Indian music, mainly from Tamil Nadu, Kerala, West Bengal and Maharashtra.

The Tamil segment is based on ‘Karakattam’, a folk dance performed in praise of the rain goddess Mariamman.

Conceptualised by Thivakaran T, a faculty member at the cinematography department of the FTII, the idea behind the making of the six-minute-long video was to showcase the connection between various music traditions belonging to different cultures.
The students who stayed back on campus during the lockdown worked on this project. It was shot entirely on the campus hostel premises with all the lockdown related guidelines being followed.

“‘Maya Nadhi’ is an anthological video to highlight and celebrate the diversity and rootedness of traditional Indian music from across the country. Since the institute was shut down and most of the academic activities were put on hold, I used the time to make a music video to showcase the harmony and connection among various music traditions belonging to different cultures of India. The students who stayed back cooperated. It was shot entirely on the campus hostel premises with all the lockdown related guidelines being followed,” said Tivakaran.



The video features four anthological segments, each dedicated to Tamil, Malayalee, Bengali and Marathi cultures respectively.

“In all four segments, traditional music practices which have percussion-based music instruments such as drum, dhol, dhaak or any other such instrument as a centrepiece have been used,” he said.

The Malayalam segment is based on Thrissur Pooram performance, a festival that is celebrated every year on the day of Pooram.

“We have used the audio clip recorded by veteran sound engineer Resul Pookutty for in the film “The Sound Story” (directed by Prasad Prabhakar). Resul as well was the director and producer of the film were kind enough to allow the clip to be used for the music video project,” said Tivakaran.

The Bengali segment features folk music and dance traditions from North Bengal while the Marathi segment is based on the Ganpati dhol-tasha performances which are carried out as processions during the Ganesh Utsav in Maharashtra.