In preparation for the final mastering of the "Tales of the Tribes", the dialogues for the short five films, as well as those of the animated Presenter of the programme need to be translated and dubbed into some local languages, a phase that has received some financial support from the UK Scholarship grant from Indian National Trust for Art and Cultural Hertitage (INTACH).
In this new animation series, there are stories from Sikkim, Nagaland, Manipur and Arunachal Pradesh, as well as one from the Pardhan Gonds of Madhya Pradesh. These short films have been made as collaborations between animators and traditional artists, with local community participation. To be able to return the films to these communities, they will now be dubbed into the relevant languages - that is Lepcha, Tenyidie, Manipuri, Galo and Apatani, in addition to Hindi and English.
I have conceptualized and coordinated the project from the start, and it is my role now to organise this last phase. The animated programme has provided the basis for a practice-led PhD entitled "Tales of the Tribes: Animation as a Tool for Indigenous Representation" (at Bournemouth University, UK), as a study on how a media professional can collaborate ethically with local communities to represent local cultures through the medium of animation. In the process I realised the importance of returning the material to the communities from which the stories have emerged. When the translations and dubbing phase has been completed and the series has been mastered onto a multi-lingual DVD, we will be ready to screen the films back to the intended audiences - primarily to the young people of these places - to observe their responses to the initiative.
The entire project has presented multiple challenges, not least, that of completing over half an hour of animation with negligible funding and with the involvement of diverse teams. It has been an exploratory process, and this promises to continue for the remaining phase. The first step has been to contact local collaborators and to try to set up strategies to complete this work, although this has not always been possible, bearing in mind the physical distance involved; these areas are quite difficult to reach on the one hand, and there are also local political situations that need to be taken into account.
In Kohima, Dr Ato Richa has volunteered to work on the Tenyidie translations, and it will be possible to recruit a team of native speakers for this language version of the programme in Kohima. The recordings will be made using local recording facilities, and in the process, all the characters from the programme will find their voices in the language of the Angami people.
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