Who Owns Folk Music? | Shilpa Mudbi | TEDxMAHE Bengaluru

Beginning with an evocative song about a caravan of lowered caste communities travelling to a Sufi dargah in North Karnataka, India, Shilpa Mudbi's talk asks us to think of the question of ownership of folk music in the age of the market. When prised out of the context of its origins, i.e. the collective memory of folk communities, what happens to the music’s embeddedness in multitudes of labour: of faith, caste, gender and work? Is this appropriation? Listen to Shilpa Mudbi as she raises profound questions around the myths of castelessness and classlessness in the space of art and performance. Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota is a performance artist, social activist, and artistic researcher. As a first-generation urbanite, she strongly identifies with her ancestral roots. Having dedicated several years to working in the hinterlands of Karnataka as a filmmaker, she has documented women’s movements, agrarian lifestyles and cultural politics. Motivated by the search for counter-narratives and consciousness of gender, class, and caste dynamics, Shilpa's artistic research focuses on the human voice. She employs the voice as a lens to understand and challenge hierarchies in society. Currently based in Gulbarga, she is furthering her research in the folk music forms of the region and establishing a space for experiential learning of folk knowledge systems. In addition to her research, Shilpa runs an English medium school in Gulbarga, catering specifically to children from disadvantaged backgrounds. This talk was given at a TEDx event using the TED conference format but independently organized by a local community. Learn more at https://www.ted.com/tedx