Institute Cultural Council: Mid-Term Review

The Institute General Body Meets (GBMs) are conducted twice every year with the intent to provide all students a convenient mechanism to provide feedback and addressme.co.nz/ball-dresses.html”>dressme.co.nz/ball-dressme.co.nz/ball-dresses.html”>dresses.html”>dressme.co.nz/ball-dresses.html”>dress concern to the student representatives responsible for various amenities on campus.

The Institute Cultural Council GBM is scheduled from 8pm on 2nd November at the Open Air Theater (OAT) in SAC.

This review is split into three parts.

• The first describes, in depth, the progress made on initiatives the council attempted / intended to push through.
• The second is an excerpt from the General Secretary leading the council.
• The third summarizes the findings of a survey conducted among the student body.

A brief summary of the advances in each sub-field has been provided. Please click on particular genres to know more about them.

[gsreview title=”Dance Club: InSync” color=”blue”]The year seems a good one for the performing arts. The club has performed well, and to quote ‘This year InSync has definitely seen one of its better years, maybe due to the heavy influx of sophomores ‘. Gyrations’ 14 saw a much improved performance level as compared to last year, but results were announced later as one of the hostels brought up a complaint against another hostel 2 minutes prior to their performance, hence views of both the sides were considered while deciding the final results with approval of Dean SA.
Overall Rating -> 3.1 / 5
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[gsreview title=”Dramatics Club” color=”blue”]
Dramatics too has seen a good flow of people and publicity, and the major events have panned out well, with a large audience. Theaterfest 2014 completed commendably, with a better turnout than last year. Practice and beginner workshops like the ones conducted last year, have been missed.

Overall Rating -> 3.2 / 5
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[gsreview title=”Film and Media Club: Silverscreen” color=”blue”]
It seems while the performing arts have progressed, the film scene has suffered. To quote a response from the survey,

“The culture of film making is declining tremendously; it seems people are no more [sic] enthusiastic towards this field… Something has to be done regarding this issue. Or else soon film making would only be limited to GCs or worse”.

It seems greater attention has been paid towards IIT BBC, at the cost of the film making related activities. No concrete events pertaining to seniors or advanced movie making have been visible, and the participation to outside competitions too has reduced; though a number of freshmen events have been conducted, the overall the online and offline activities of the club have reduced considerably.

Overall Rating –> 2.9/5
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[gsreview title=”Literary Arts: Blitzkrieg” color=”blue”]
Among the non-performing arts, LA has performed quite well. The establishment of the long awaited Quizzing club and its online activities of the club have been appreciated. The number of events has been quite large (the preparatory events were not indispensable), to the verge of getting infeasible to manage from the organizers’ point of view.
A lack of punctuality from the organizing members has been observed too.

Overall Rating –> 4/5
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[gsreview title=”Music: Saaz & Staccato” color=”blue”]
A major complaint from club members has been the selection process for the major performing events, namely Surbahaar. Nevertheless, the genre has seen a large increase in the audience for its events, and Surbahaar saw a jam-packed Convocation Hall unlike last year. The overall quality of the JAM sessions and performances has seen improvements. While the Indian music scene (Saaz) has mostly remained stagnant, the western music (Staccato) has developed quite well, and has seen has greater influx of freshmen and an improved administrative structure.

Overall Rating -> 3.4 / 5
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[gsreview title=”Photography and Fine Arts” color=”blue”]
Neither of the genres has seen any considerable changes. There have been a decent number of freshie-centric events, but involvement from freshmen hasn’t been sustained. The concentration on large events and exhibitions has reduced avenues for conducting hands on and practice painting and photography sessions. Unlike previous years, no new skill based events have been introduced, and offline club activity has reduced drastically.

Overall Rating – 3/5
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[gsreview title=”Speaking Arts” color=”blue”]
Apart from the much discussed JAM GC proceedings, issues have been raised against the bias towards Debating; hence neglecting MUNs and other forms; and serious lack of attention to other events, especially pertaining to Vaani. Also, interactive sessions from speakers, like in the previous years, have been missed. The club has seen a larger participation of freshmen and sophomores this year, and has won a number of events outside institute.

Overall Rating – 3.3/5

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[gsreview title=”Vaani: The Hindi Club” color=”blue”]
Vaani, the Hindi Club of IIT Bombay, functions under two secretaries – the Literary Arts and the Speaking Arts secretaries. This creates a hindrance in smooth functioning. Apart from their flagship events (Hindi Utsav, which saw a commendable turn out this year, and the release of Spandan after a gap of 2 years), events have suffered due to lack of attention & publicity, and a non-existent administrative structure.

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[gsreview title=”Design Club (Initiated this year)” color=”blue”]

One of the primary initiatives of the GSCA this year, the club functions to consolidate the design requirements of the various events, thereby reducing redundant PORs in other clubs and to cater to Designing as a genre. The sustained number of people involved in the club, both freshmen and seniors, and the outreach and various national awards received by its members, especially considering it’s their initial year is laudable. A need for sessions pertaining to more advanced design content is desired in upcoming semester.

Rating – 4/5
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[gsreview title=”Fashion Club (Initiated this year)” color=”blue”]

As a part of the Lifestyle Club, the Fashion Club has been initiated. The events, though very few in number, have been appreciated in quality. A greater number of events and better publicity is demanded, since a majority of the population is not aware of its existence. Fashion Classes have been appreciated and its output it in MI auditions and other outside events is awaited.

Overall Rating -> 3/5

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[gsreview title=”Other Events” color=”blue”]

Under the social initiative, ‘Muskaan’, in collaboration with NSS, children from outside are given classes in Dramatics, Dance and Fine Arts on a weekly basis; a praiseworthy effort. Apart from it, unlike previous years, Insitute Cult Nite was held, which was primarily fun event, saw a popular response, especially among freshies.

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[gsreview title=”The remaining (promised) clubs” color=”blue”]

As a part of the Lifestyle Club, as mentioned in the initiatives of the GSCA, 3 more clubs had to be introduced – Cuisine, Spiritual, and Film Appreciation.

According to GSCA, these ventures are experimental in nature; Cuisine has had active logistic issues, which shall be resolved to some extent by the next semester; Spirituality is still under consideration while Film Appreciation has been stated rather infeasible under current circumstances. These initiatives should have been considered while developing the manifesto, if they were actually so infeasible to carry out.

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General Secretary (GS) Speaks: Arpit Agarwal

My tenure is based on 3 major ideologies:
o Outreach: to involve more people in culturals as beginners, hobbyists and audience
o Learning: To provide mentoring to pursue their interests to the limit of their passion
o Excellence: To give performers an opportunity to showcase their talent

We had a very good tenure till now in terms of participation and enthusiasm. Though we were unfortunate to not have LT PCSA this year (which has undoubtedly been the most appropriate venue for almost every performing arts event and screenings), and the fact that there were numerous extended weekends in the calendar made it difficult for us to space out the events as weekends are very important days as far as cultural activities are concerned.

This year we focussed mainly on outreach (i.e. involving beginners) and improving quality of the events. Publicity is an area we improved a lot since the last year. We had almost 400% rise in facebook page followers till now in the tenure as compared to the whole of previous tenure. We have increased workshops for beginners and hostel level workshops this year, and tried to focus more on the learning aspect of culturals.

Apart from these, initiatives like ‘Muskaan’ – A social initiative in collaboration with NSS, Institute Lukkha Cultural Night and ‘Cult…Not Difficult’ (A cultural programme for beginners to learn and prepare a performance under mentorship of a club senior) have been organised to cater to different sets of people involved with culturals. We introduced a “Freshmen Cultural Night” during the Freshiezza to give freshies an event specially designed for them to enjoy and bond.

To give a new essence of cultural activities in the institute, we introduced new clubs pertaining to Fashion, Design, Quizzing and Punning; with cuisine and wordgames clubs set to be opened next semester.

For regular participants, we introduced multiple new genre workshops/sessions (like Music production, fashion photography, VFX, flash animation, Belly dance, B-boying, India Quiz, Debate Content classes, theatre lights and direction, etc.) and regular jamming sessions in almost all genre activities. The number of such classes and workshops have tremendously increased inspite of the calendar constraints.

For professional exposure, we are providing opportunities to institute students to perform at nationally acclaimed cultural hubs like NCPA and Kalaghoda (almost certain) in the next semester.