Urban Folk Project

04/02/2026

WORKSHOP ALERT!!

Registration opens this week for the first ever residential .

DM for more info.

17/02/2025

A huge congratulations to Team Living Lightly on the successful completion of a truly remarkable festival! An even bigger thank you for hosting Urban Folk Project and for giving our new team its premiere at this year’s edition.

Through this festival, we were able to launch Kalaburgi Kala Mandali, a new collective of young, talented voices. This would not have been possible without the trust and support of Sushma Iyengar, whose belief in us helped bring this vision to life.

A heartfelt hug to Shashank, Tatsama, Priya, and everyone at the Living Lightly team. And to our friends who showed up for the performance in this manic city—thank you!

This is just the beginning for this young team. Wish us well as Urban Folk Project embarks on yet another journey—another experience, another experiment. We are seeking support and hopeful of finding friends along the way!

28/01/2025

We are really excited to introduce you to 'Kalaburgi Kala Mandali', a vibrant group of young folk voices from North Karnataka. We shifted to Gulbarga 3 years ago hoping to root ourselves and this feels like the first step in this journey.

"Dana Kuri Kaayora hadu" is an evening of songs from the pastoral community of North Karnataka- Kurubas and the gollas. These songs orally passed on from women to women across generations were sung during chores, to celebrate life and love, during important rituals.

Join us for an electric evening where tradition meets youthful energy!

Date- 8th Feb 2025, Saturday
Time- 5.30 PM
Venue- Urban Solace, Opposite to Ulsoor lake

Limited passes available. Please contact Bharath on 9620874177 for passes.

29/06/2023

The long-awaited workshop by Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota in person is happening in Bangalore at the United Theosophical Society, Benson Town, Bangalore.

Limited seats
REGISTER NOW
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSfBr28vU-D8QJFMEhRKdnuUuLrhYFlhFHe9lo3casg0XBe0Kw/viewform?usp=sf_link

03/01/2023

So it’s been decided!!
Let’s return to the park coming Sunday 🌳☀️

For two years and met with friends, collaborators, enthusiasts, comrades and students to sing folk songs from across Karnataka at Cubbon Park. Call it public art, musical meet and greet or an attempt to recreate folk pathways in our urban lives. These sessions were held everyday except on Sunday for over two years before the COVID lockdowns.

Shilpa and Adi have moved lock stock and barrel to Gulbarga since. Since they are back in town for sometime they will be doing a one off session coming weekend. They will be there around the bandstand at 9:30am doing what they have always done: singing folk songs with anyone who cares to join!
Bring a mat for yourself. Looks like we may run out of space on our ಚಾಪೆ (mat)☺️🙌🏽

28/12/2022

Songs of my Ancestors : a show about love, joy, grief, nostalgia, and listening.

“The experience of "Songs of My Ancestors" was like living and experiencing the songs of OUR ancestors. It was a concert, a sing along, a history-social lesson, a story telling session, catching up with a friend and a discovery of personal and collective memories, all rolled into one.

The intimacy and the comradry among the performers was freely and easily shared with the audience. Another thing that stood out for me was how this deeply personal piece held space for various forms of grief, vulnerability, and empathy, and honesty. The kind of honesty I aspire to bring out in any work that I might create and share in the future.

Extremely touching, heart warming performance that's sits with grief and memory, and sings it's songs.”
-

Picture courtesy

Start the next year with us singing songs that have passed on to us by ‘s beloved grandmother Gundamma.

Next show is being hosted by Anuradha Venkataraman on the 7th January 2023. RSVP- 9886334046

05/12/2022

Early this year in February, Shilpa lost her grandmother Gundamma. She was the key catalyst that set Shilpa off on the folk journey that established Urban Folk Project. With the help of and students of Urban Folk Project, Shilpa would like to commemorate her grandmother‘s memory with a series of performances.

Back from a long sabbatical, Urban Folk Project presents ‘Songs of my Ancestors’. Shows will be held this December and January next year across Bangalore.

Watch this space for more details. Mail/message/DM to host this performance.

Sw****ka School of Dance and Music Bangalore Creative Circus & Atta Galatta

14/06/2021

The much awaited voice workshop is here.
will be conducting 2 7-day workshops for a small batches. It is open to all persons of all range of skills and talents. This workshop is meant to help people better understand and own their ‘voice’ using simplified concepts and folk knowledge.

Duration:
5 GROUP SESSIONS : 45 to 60 mins each
2 INDIVIDUAL SESSIONS: 30 mins each

Medium of instructions:
ENGLISH

Fees:
Rs 3,500/-

Date:
20th June 2021 - 1st batch
28th June 2021 - 2nd batch

We would like to accommodate a maximum of 15 people in a batch so individual attention can be paid to each participant.

START BY FILLING OUT OUR GOOGLE FORM! forms.gle/T7KzmYpP89VBqs4A6.
Registration for the course will be confirmed upon payment. Details for payment will be sent to you within a few days of filling this form.

13/06/2021

‘Yellamma and other stories’ has not been performed to a live audience in more than two years. We miss our team of performers, interacting with our audience and needless to say the ‘stage’. Thank you Anish Ponnanna for providing us the opportunity to showcase a glimpse of the story to a large audience. Super glad to have recorded this excerpt of our most cherished and applauded set on his YouTube channel. Love what Anish is curating this season ❤️🙌🏽

FOLLOW THE LINK BELOW👇🏽👇🏾👇🏽 TO WATCH
https://youtu.be/iwuRlx8p_HQ
☝🏽☝🏾☝🏽

LIKE SHARE AND SUBSCRIBE to his YouTube channel https://youtube.com/c/TheEngineersPick
for more phenomenal content.

01/05/2021

Thank you, Yogesh from Prajavani for sharing.

ವಿದೇಶದಲ್ಲಿ ಓದಿರುವ ಖ್ಯಾತ ಜನಪದ ಗಾಯಕಿ, ಜಾನಪದ ಅಕಾಡೆಮಿ ಸದಸ್ಯೆ ಶಿಲ್ಪಾ ಮುಡಬಿ ನಗರ ಜೀವನ ತ್ಯಜಿಸಿ ತಮ್ಮ ಮೂಲದತ್ತ ಹೆಜ್ಜೆ ಇಟ್ಟ....

30/04/2021

We have been performing stories and songs of Renuka Yellamma for over three years now. It is folk artists like Manjamma Jogathi, Ramakka Jogathi and Radha bai who helped open doors into the mythical, musical and magical world of Yellemma. Without whom this journey would not have been made possible.

This work comes with the responsibility of bringing marginalised communities and their culture to the fore. We believe folk is contemporary and needs to be revisited and revised to suit the world around us. Hence our focus continues to be transference and experimentation. We thank all the curators of art and culture across the country who have provided us with platforms to showcase our works.

A very special thank you to Anish Ponnanna of 'The Engineer's Pick' for facilitating this wonderful collaboration and The Whitefield Project for the Arts and Culture for producing this piece. UFP documented 'Yaara Helidarammamma' in 2017 at Manjamma's house in Mariyammanahalli. Manjamma, Ramakka and Gowri sang this song sitting by the door of their tiny home located beside the highway.

Shilpa Mudbi along with Bruthva Caleb and Rahul Shivakumar recorded this song in early April 2021 at Stained Class Productions, amidst a brewing pandemic to bring you an experimental take on 'Yaara Helidarammamma'

THE ENGINEER’S PICKCurated and produced by sound engineer and artiste Anish Ponnanna, The Engineer’s Pick is a curation of Indian compositions in Indian lang...

25/03/2021

The Urban Folk Project Collective is a little over three years old now. It has only just started to feel like a collective since we were joined by friends, followers and students. For the last 6 months, much has been functioning due to the extra set of hands that joined us. This wonderful bunch has been our very first workforce. They have helped with keeping in touch with our audience, successfully running a fundraiser for our mentor, working on the UFP website and are undertaking several small and big experiments under this banner. We are so glad to have them on board. We have gained more than we expected and continue to learn with our young and enthusiastic team. These are our guys!

Tiasha is an MA Development student from Azim Premji University who loves baking, with a constant craving for gooey brownies

Tara, outside of college work, is a Yoga and a Kalaripayattu practitioner, currently trying to perfect her headstand.

Deeksh*t is a journo in the making with a keen interest in visual storytelling through his frames.

Divangi Shah, a communication designer who is passionate to make the world a better place through design.

Vedashree is a trained dancer, ever keen on learning more about the world around us: the one the humans have created and the larger biome it fits into.

Kavya is an avid petlover, spending most of her free time pampering her dog, at other times she is busy fretting over college or taking a run.