Small space, big stage

A small, but discerning bunch of music aficiona dos in the city have their calendars marked on January 29. As evening sets, they'll be assembling at a quiet, breezy home in Thiruvanmiyur to listen to a lineup they don't know of, yet.
In fact, until 30 hours before the show, they aren't even going to be told the venue. This is broadly how a Sofar Sounds gig works.Sofar Sounds, the now celebrated global community that started with London in 2009 to “bring the magic back to live music“ came to Chennai in August last year, and Rohan Sen, who spearheaded it here before passing it on to a team in the city, is quite hopeful of the possibilities it can rear.
“The venue and the artists are kept a secret until the end. The intent is clear -you come for the music and that should be the only thing that matters. The rules are few but defined; gigs must be hosted at no commercial establishment, and the audience, whose applications are selected, will be notified,“ says Sen.
Concerts are videographed, edited and uploaded on the Sofar Sounds website. Artists can therefore be spotted by the community and aficionados from around the world. Devoid of bar noises, dancing or any form of disruption, they get to perform to a dedicated audience and also perform what they want.
The good news is, there's probably no better time than now for independent musicians to take the plunge, as patrons, influencers and artists in the city are working tirelessly to offer the edge and visibility they need. Many such platforms are doggedly emerging alongside a mainstream music industry that is undergoing upheaval almost every day .They're united in one essential goal ­ to cultivate an ecosystem that coveted venues with their high stakes cannot.
Sriram Ayer of Nalandaway Founda tion, for instance, has just started a “culture hub“ called `Wandering Artist' a placid café, training and performing space in RA Puram that was inaugurated on Saturday with a performance by pianist Anil Srinivasan.
“One of our visions is to create an opportunity and stage for collaborative work between artists. We would like them to come together and create something new. It will be a non-ostentatious space offering honest, intimate experiences for both artists and audiences,“ says Ayer.
The revenue stream for Wandering Artist will come from trainings and workshops it plans to conduct in collaboration with prestigious artists.
In the case of Sofar, the format is as rooted as the founding vision is, and for a good time, could be completely volunteer-driven. The network comprises hosts -who open up their homes or just about any venue they deem fit for gigs; artists -who are typically chosen by the Sofar Chennai team through online applications and at times, word of mouth; and guests -who also apply online to attend shows.
While in some parts of the world, Sofar concerts are ticketed, in India they run entirely on vo l u n t a r y contributions collected at the end of shows. These are in tur n, used to keep the show running. While in cities such as Mumbai, contributions out of a single concert have been as high as `10,000, here at home, they're still just catching heat, says Sen.
These movements are also reforming the incentives artists take home from them. They're no more alternatives to a highly non-permeable mainstream arts industry, but spaces for free-flowing and unconditioned creativity with possible markets emerging of their own. Supportive Cities, which was started by Siddharth Hande in 2015, has been driven by the sole purpose of aiding aspirants with unique career choices and one of their highlights is Supportive Cities Stage, which curates shows for novice artists in unconventional venues.
“It's exciting to get past this hindrance of infrastructure and capital and explore solutions, which are many; a method of curated crowd-funding for instance. It could be built by a community of dedicated patrons,“ says Hande.
Kaber Vasuki and Tenma -mem bers of Tamil band Kurangan, in fact, found each other and also several other creatives they went on to popularly collaborate with, at one of Supportive Cities' concerts. “Venues for independent music may be commercial or non-commercial. But what gives an upcoming artist the edge are spaces such as these that al low them to present original work and also get noticed for it. After all, artists make audiences for other artists, and this is how the word spreads and the movement grows,“ says Kaber.
Over the next few weeks the city will also witness performances in MTC buses, railway station and the beach as part of the Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha.