By Mira Diana Kudva Driskell,People Nature Collective
On March 15th, Pillur musicians joined renowned Karnatik musician T.M. Krishna on stage at Ooty Literary Festival for a session entitled “An Equal Music”. Alexander, Bharti, K. Raja, Kuppammal, Murugan, Murugesan, Murugan, Nagaraj, Prema and Saranya all gathered outside the Nilgiri Library to perform in front of an eager crowd, with Ranjani Prasad providing an introduction for the group.
The following discussion built on the Pillur team and T.M. Krishna’s discussion over the previous days, touching on the artistry of creating each musical instrument, the ecological knowledge embedded in different songs, and the role of music and dance in their day to day lives. Afterwards, T.M. Krishna delivered a brief talk on the intersections of music and social justice, focusing on the problematic ways that more privileged audiences perceive so-called “tribal music”; asking audiences to not only question aesthetic value itself, but also how we arrive at the classification of certain music as “classical” and what we consider “music” altogether.
K. Raja joined T.M. Krishna onstage for a brief Q&A session, where audience members were free to ask more questions about the performance and talk and express their respect for the Pillur musicians. One highlight was when the audience had the chance to hear from the two youngest performers about their dedication to music and dance; seeing young people taking up the work of artists in their community prompted applause from the entire group.
We hope to see many such collaborations in the future, and that all LitFest goers left the event with a deep appreciation of Irula music. Thank you to Alexander, Bharti, K. Raja, Kuppammal, Murugan, Murugesan, Murugan, Nagaraj, Prema and Saranya for an incredible performance!
