It doesn't get more creative than this! : Published articles/The Economic Times 1

Article in The Economic Times, Nov 14, 06

It doesn’t get more “creative” than this!

There was a time when to be ”creative” was to sing, dance, draw, paint or at best, make films. Only a few could do it, you had to be born talented, and the rest of the world watched and admired. Occasionally you also made money, but often your fortunes were inversely proportionate to your creativity quotient. Newscasters, techies, engineers and cooks were not creative. But if you were in advertising, you were certainly in a highly creative industry!

Not any more.

Today, everyone is creative. And everyone makes money, being creative. Today, creative is not appreciation of high art reserved for the few, but entertainment for many. Today, you start being creative at a very early age. Today, if you can link your creativity to a social cause or everyday health, even better. And if you can “go global” with your creativity… well, that’s the best.

The young henna expert who charges Rs3,500 to decorate a bride’s palms is creative. The flair bartenders who do elaborate stunts with fire and flame are creative. The participants in the Great Indian Laughter Challenge, the city rock bands, the theater groups are creative. People who devise game shows are most creative. RJs in FM radio stations are auditioned for clarity and tone of voice, musical expertise and - no surprise – “creativity”. Everyone who participated in the largest drum ensemble is, surely, creative. Bhanumathi, the first woman puppet maker who teaches puppetry is creative. Jeeva the travelling storyteller, from Singapore to San Diego, is surprisingly creative. The people who design scary experiences with disembodied hands, trap doors and screams in mega malls are unusually creative. The boys and girls who work in animation houses, that too for foreign films, are fantastically creative. Every housewife is creative – look at her curtain ideas, her kitchen cabinets, her navaratri decorations and her diwali gift packs. Just look at the “classes” column in your daily newspaper and you’ll know - eight year olds who learn Tanjore painting, 12 year olds who learn photography, and hundreds of women who learn radium painting, jewelry making, candle making… are all creative.

With this “democratisation” of creativity as it were, comes a certain “universality” which goes beyond “fusion” as we have traditionally known it.

Anita Ratnam’s Bharatnatyam incorporates Chinese martial arts and Tibetan chanting. Another dancer conceptualizes an Indo Korean dance venture for the Seoul Performing Arts Festival. The November Music Festival in Chennai this year will feature Pakistani, and German music, Syrian hymns in Aramaic, in addition to Abhangs and World Music. Brhaddhvani, a research and training center for traditional Carnatic music includes African dances at its valedictory function

An English play is staged with Carnatic music. Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream is enacted in six Indian languages – all at once, on the same stage.

Post production, animation, visual effects, fine arts, software, electronics, film, fashion, performing arts, art and craft, gaming… all merge. Art, technology and innovation merge. Artists are combining painting with photography, cartoons, linoloeum prints, sculpture, industrial junk, acrylic engraving, folk and kitsch. A furniture shop announces a new range of furniture, which is a fusion of Vietnamese, Chinese and French if you please.

In the light of all this, a tabla, vocalist and sarod player performing with a French band seems almost tame. But what makes it interesting, is when a French classical band, performs to an enraptured group of slum dwellers. Playing Beethoven and Bach to coolies, washerwomen and children who, the news item tells us, hoot in delight. And what makes it inspiring, is when you hear of Werner Dornik, an Austrian artist, who has set up an art school for leprosy patients who paint for four hours a day, some of them painting with brushes fixed to their fingerless hands with rubber bands. They then share the money and use it to help others like themselves.

And then there is art for health. Dance therapy that combines yogasanas, folk dance and martial art for bulging midriffs, spondylitis, activation of liver and pancreas, mobilizing insulin and even sexual dysfunctions. And puppetry classes for introverted children. Of course, much has been made of “music therapy” – elaborate how-tos in every other newspaper and magazine tell you to have a bath, put on a headphone, light candles, lie down and listen to music, and focus on the silences between notes.

And here’s the final testimony: the “corporatisation” of creativity!
* The Creative Future School at IIM Bangalore calls for entries and 20 short listed candidates get a chance to pitch their idea to business investors in London.
* There is a global conference on Creative Economy.
* SG Vasudev and 69 others in Bangalore get together to form Anunya Drishya, which engages school children in Indian contemporary art education; and has, among other things, initiated a health care programme for musicians. They report that corporate houses, clubs and colleges are beginning to ask for art appreciation sessions.
* KK Raghava establishes Raw Umber India, an art management firm to manage his art, which is sold with instruction manuals on how to take care of them.
* Art is becoming corporate gift and brands are striking up relationships with artists and their art.
*And the ultimate: Finance Minister P Chidambaram with Anjolie Ela Menon creates a painting that will be sold to raise funds for an old age home in Gurgaon. Reserve price: Rs 20 lakhs.

Democratisation, universalisation, socialisation, corporatisation!

It doesn’t get more creative than this!

The only question is: how is the advertising industry planning to keep pace?