The Nomad Film and Performing Arts School is the first institution of its kind dedicated to the creative vision of India’s marginalised communities, and run by marginalised communities themselves. The School takes forward several years of community-led and research based film making and theatre and is committed to the objective of creating cultural leaders from these communities, whose artistic practices might not simply redress the erasures and harmful stereotypes about Denotified Tribes and other marginalised communities that dominate the mainstream public sphere, but to reinstate a sense of dignity in one’s identity, in one’s sense of community and in the movement for rights and recognition.

The Nomad Film and Performing Arts School is driven by the philosophy that knowledge should first and foremost benefit the communities that it is about, that knowledge must arise from the lived experiences of these communities, in their own idioms, and through their own aesthetic practices. The School recognises artistic practice as a mode of enquiry and as a catalyst for transformation and uses the twin pedagogical approaches of arts-based methods of research and research based art-practice. We draw on the artistic practices of these communities themselves, given that a large number of those deemed as ‘criminal tribes’ have in fact made a living out of art and performance for centuries. 

The trainings carried out in the initial period, around the time of successive COVID lockdowns when theatre and performance were not possible, involved theatre makers of Budhan Theatre, and a first series of ten films (add hyperlink) were made on the experiences of the lockdown, and of the pandemic more broadly in Chharanagar, the main settlement of the Chhara DNT community in Ahmedabad. These films brought together a range of elements from theatre, monologues, poetry, music and more traditional documentary formats such as interviews. Once the members of Budhan Theatre were trained through this process, they took their place behind the camera and as film-makers, made a second series of ten films on the experiences of other DNT communities in western and central India. Being trained in everything from research to narrative structuring, from camera work, to sound, from music to editing and post-production, the team was now ready to begin training others. This marked the beginning of the idea of setting up the School as a space for training people from various marginalised communities across the country.

The first batch of trainees were from a range of marginalised communities from across Ahmedabad. Over the period of a year, 40 plus (number of trainees) were trained and a third series of fiction and non-fiction films were produced in the process (include hyperlink). Simultaneously, a training programme focussed on Adivasi experiences was carried out in collaboration with the Adivasi Academy of Voice in Chhota Udepur, where another series of films were made on the various Adivasi experiences of the pandemic (add hyperlink)At the same time a series of modules on the various elements of research-based film making were developed, including the use of forum theatre as a method of research and for narrative formation. Over the next year, the trainings moved to three other regions in the country, each representing particularly fragile ecologies. Developing a notion of ‘film ecologies’, we trained community groups in Himachal Pradesh, the Andaman Islands, and in Rajasthan. This series of films span and transcend a wide range of genres (add hyperlink).

The School is currently working with marginalised communities in different parts of the country, and adapting its training methods and focus to the particular contexts and needs of the relevant communities.