Trampolieri - the fabulous sky-walkers of Bologna (2)

This photo-essay is the second part of a homage to the "Trampolieri", the stilt-walkers of Bologna (Italy). They use wonderful creativity and imagination to choose new styles, costumes and colours for each of their public appearances. While the first part looked at their costumes and colours in the period 2005-2011, this second part is about the period 2012-13.

2012

At the Bologna Gay pride parade, I had reached early as I was supposed to meet someone. That gave the opportunity to see the Trampolieri getting ready with their make-up and costumes. Their make-up included putting body paint in different colours. This offered numerous opportunities for taking very striking pictures. In fact, I really love these images.

My favourite was the lady in blue who made me think of Shiva!

A small group of Trampolieri were also playing with gender and identity issues. I was really struck by the women with moustaches, who seem to underline how gender identities are constructed. At the same time, it made me think of "Didi tera devar diwana" kind of situations in Indian marriages, where girls dress up as boys during the women's music ceremonies.

I ended up taking hundreds of pictures that day and it was an unforgettable experience. Looking at these pictures brings back that feeling of joy.

2013

Based on my experience at the Gay Pride 2012, when I heard about the Gay pride 2013, I immedietly imagined repeating the experience and the reached venue much in advance to catch the "getting-ready" part of the Trampolieri stilt walkers.

The initial make-up images were fun, though I was missing the strong colours of 2012.

After putting on the make-up, the Trampolieri covered their faces with colourful clothes, through which you could see only their eyes and lips. They made me feel a little uneasy and I think that they conveyed very effectively the feelings of persons who are forced to hide their true selves, to escape the societal discrimination.

Usually in Gay Pride parades, many persons use masks to hide themselves. May be because masks are associated with happy festivals like carnivals or may be because, masks still retain the "being human" kind of feelings, they do not give me the feeling of unease. On the other hand, those faces covered with clothes, did convey a feeling of imprisonment.

The Trampolieri explained that they had chosen that particular style to express solidarity with Pussy Riot who were imprisoned at that time.

They also had chains criss-crossing over their bodies, which increased the feelings of unease.

In the end, the Trampolieri were equally colourful in this occasion, but rather than joy, this time, their costumes transmitted pain and fear.

In 2013 there was a second opportunity to see the Trampolieri in action - the biannual summer festival Par Tot parade. For a change it was held in one of the peripheral areas of the city called Pilastro.

Obviously, this time, I was there well in advance, to catch their make-up and getting ready.

This time, they had again decided on body colours - all the team had their bodies and heads covered with white colour with a few small designs in red or black. Some persons had white flowers, others had silver or black coloured necklaces or bracelets.

The two team leaders, one man and one woman, were covered entirely with deep red. These colours made for very striking visuals.

This brings to end my photographic homage to The Trampolieri, the stilt-walker group of Bologna. Watching them has given me a lot of pleasure and clicking their pictures has been wonderful. So, thank you and best wishes for continuing this tradition of new make-up, new styles and new costumes.

I hope that this photo-essay will inspire people in other cities and other parts of the world, to think of starting something unusual, which can express your creativity in a different way so that you can carve a distinct artistic identity for your group.

You can check the Facebook page of Trampolieri of Bologna for more pictures and their other initiatives. If you missed the first part of this post that presented their costumes from the period 2005-2011, you can check it by clicking here.
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Trampolieri - The Fabulous Sky-walkers of Bologna (1)

"Trampolieri" are the people who walk on stilts. Bologna (Italy) where I live, has a group of dedicated stilt-walkers who use wonderful creativity and imagination to choose new styles, costumes and colours for each of their public appearances.

This photo-essay is a homage to this group of people. It presents some of their pictures that I have clicked over the past 8 years. This first part of the post focusses on the period 2005-2011.

Let me start with some general information about stilt-walking. The art of stilt-walking goes back a long time. There is a mention of stilt-walking in ancient Greek texts, more than two thousand years old. When I was a child, once I had seen a tribal group do a dance on stilts in India. People living in marshy areas build their houses on stilts and sometimes use stilts to cross marshy-watery places. So stilt walking is common to many countries and cultures.

There are different kinds of stilts. You can read more about them on Wikipedia.

In the image below you can see the stilts used by the Bologna group of stilt-walkers - these are made of sturdy wood. A wooden flat piece is fixed to the sole of the shoes, which is then fixed to a wooden piece on the top of the stilt. It requires a good sense of balance and lot of practice to do stilt-walking safely.

2005

I saw the the Trampolieri of Bologna for the first time at the preparation of the summer festival parade (Par Tot parade) in Villa Angeletti park in 2005. I was not too impressed by them. They had a pale hooded dress with black designs on their faces and bodies.

Clicking their pictures while they were moving on stilts was difficult as they were moving quickly and probaly I was standing too close to them. Here are two pictures from that first encounter in 2005.

2006

In 2006 I saw them at the summer rave party. Rave parties are about losing inhibitions, dancing, drinking, and making a lot of noise. It also means getting stoned by smoking weed or taking stronger drugs. In that occasion, the costume of the Trampolieri was simple and in line with the spirit of the rave party. Once again, I was not too impressed with them, though they seemed to be having a good time and enjoying themselves.

2007

The summer festival preparations of the Par Tot parade at Villa Angeletti park in 2007 was the first time that I looked at the Trampolieri with more attention. They had a colourful look. Some people had painted their bodies in gold, some with white and red and some others with red and blue or red and yellow. The costumes had red, purple and black with blue-yellow hats. Thus, in 2007 I clicked a lot of their pictures and started recognising them as a group.

2008

In 2008, I had a glimpse of the Trampolieri at the Bologna GLBTIQ (Gay, Lesbian, Bisexual, Transexual, Intersexual, Queer) pride parade. It was very crowded and noisy, and I could only see them a from a distance. So not many pictures came from this encounter. My favourites in this occasion was a young couple in blue.

2011

I didn't find any good images of Trampolieri in my image archives from 2009 and 2010, and I only found them again in 2011. At the Par Tot parade in the summer festival at the Piazza Maggiore of Bologna, the Trampolieri were present in two main groups. The first group was part of people dressed as giant insects, like the two guys dressed as black spiders shown in the images below.

The second and more numerous group was that of devils and angry spirits, like the followers of Shiva, in different colours and shapes. They were all closed in a prison of a white chain linked to a wooden pole held by the lead couple. Though they were trying to be scary, I think that they looked nice - in my opinion, it was their best look so far. The quality of their body make-up and costumes had improved.

Conclusion

I hope that you have liked this brief introduction to the Trampolieri stilt walkers of Bologna.

To close this post, the last image is from the 2007 Par Tot summer festival parade, of a girl dressed as the sun.

You can check the Facebook page of the Trampolieri of Bologna for more pictures and to know about their other initiatives. You can also read the second part of this post that presents their costumes from 2012 and 2013.
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Joys of Kathak

Welcome to the magical world of Kathak, one of the classical dances of India. Kathak is the dance from the Hindi heartland of northern India. Generally speaking, most of the classical dances of India like Kathakkali, Bharatanatyam and Mohiniattam with elaborate choreographies and exquisite costumes, originated in Southern part of India. Probably it has something to do with the peace and prosperity in that part of India over a period of centuries, so that cultures could develop more elaborate forms of artistic expressions. On the other hand, historically northern parts of India, especially on the west, over periods of millenniums, had repeated invasions and wars.

The same is true for the two other classical dance forms of northern India, Manipuri from the north-east and Odissi from Orissa (Odisha). Both have elaborate costumes, makeup and gestures. This part of India could also develop traditions of artistic expressions because it was far away from the invading armies coming from the west.

Kathak is the dance of north and north-western part of India and has been heavily influenced by the different cultures that reached India from the west, especially the Mughals.

To be classified as a classical, apart from the antichity of its traditions, a dance must also have a codified set of rules that govern all its movements, gestures and costumes, as well as the music that accompanies it. I think that Kathak was devalued and vulgarised over the past century as it lost patronage of the kings and nawabs, and was seen as the dance of prostitutes. Even if it developed in the Mughal courts, it took many traditions of Hinduism from the Hindi heartland, especially the traditions linked with Krishna.

The distinctive feature of Kathak is the foot-work. Vigorous thumping of feet along the rhythm of music from tabla, that may seem very similar to the Spanish flammenco dance in some ways, is a key part of the dance. Expert dancers take that to the extremes with such quick footwork that only the more experienced can understand the nuances and complexities of the dance. Yet, even if you don't understand all the complexities, you can always enjoy its simple gestuality and its vigourous gestures and movements.

All the pictures below are from a kathak performance by guru Birju Maharaj's dance troupe held in New Delhi in October 2005. Birju Maharaj ji is one of the leading exponents of this dance. The dancers in his troupe included Sashwati Sen, who had become famous after her dance in Satyajit Ray's film Shatranhj ke Khiladi, that was choreographed by Pandit Birju Maharaj.

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Note: This post was originally written in 2005