Interdisciplinarity
Pause/Play was the first instance of Basement 21’s Art Interrupting Institution practice with artists from disciplines as varied as parkour and academics coming together for an impromptu interruption of the regular functioning of the Max Meuller Bhavan, Chennai. Contemporary musician / composer Maarten Visser and Pravin Kannanur have been conducting a series of cross disciplinary improvisation sessions and workshops, from 2010, leading to a ‘dictionary of cross disciplinary terms’.
Theatre
Pravin Kannanur is known for his theatre work, especially as a director and producer in contemporary tamil theatre, with the groups Magic Lantern and Koothu-p-Pattarai. Kalki’s Ponniyin Selvan was a major production both in 1999 and in 2014 to 2017, bringing together theatre practitioners from all over Tamilnadu.
Contemporary Dance
Pravin continues to involve himself in the contemporary dance scene in Chennai, sometimes as a performer, but mostly as a technical director or dramaturge. His work has been with the choreographers Preethi Athreya and Padmini Chettur.
Publication
During his period with the collective India Theatre Forum, as a core team member, Pravin put together a Playwright’s Forum looking into copyright issues fracturing the theatre community. This culminated in a book on the best practices guidelines, leading through all the steps in the life of a play from ideation to marketing. Compiled and designed together with advocates S. Devika, M. Remya, Lawrence Liang, the artist M. Natesh and writer Deepika Kumaravel, the not restricted by copyright book, Copyright Kotwal was first published in English in 2010 and subsequently in Hindi, Tamil, Bengali and Kannada.
