Nammu Haada: North Karnataka's Hidden Soundscape Arrives at Kochi Biennale [Feb 8]

Songs grandmothers sang while grinding grain. Songs that lived in kitchens and fields, not archives. What happens when young musicians refuse to let their grandmother's songs fade? Kalaburgi Kala Mandali answers at Kochi Biennale, Fort Kochi this February 8th, 2026.

In the semi-arid landscape of North Karnataka, women have sung for centuries—at births and deaths, during harvest and migration, in moments of devotion and quiet dissent. These songs have never fit neatly into religious or classical categories. They've simply been life itself, passed mouth-to-mouth across generations. On February 8th at 8 PM, these voices will travel 900 kilometers to Fort Kochi's Dutch-era Bastion Bungalow, carried by an ensemble of young musicians who refuse to let them fade.

What is Nammu Haada?

Nammu Haada—meaning "Our Songs" in Kannada—is a folk music performance bringing the sound worlds of North Karnataka's Deccan plateau to the Kochi-Muziris Biennale. This isn't polished concert hall fare. These are domestic songs and life-cycle songs—the kind once sung while grinding grain, rocking babies to sleep, or mourning the dead. Songs that lived in kitchens and fields, not archives.

The region they emerge from has been shaped by centuries of movement, exchange, and resistance. Lingayat and Sufi traditions intersect here. Vachana poetry—the radical 12th-century verses of Basavanna that waged war against untouchability—mingles with bhakti devotion and pastoral melodies. It's a syncretic musical landscape where a single song might carry traces of agrarian labour, caste-based occupations, and seasonal migrations all at once.

Kalaburgi Kala Mandali: Young Voices, Ancient Knowledge

The performance is led by Kalaburgi Kala Mandali, an ensemble of young musicians from across Kalaburgi district. They're an initiative of the Urban Folk Project, and their story is one of patient, sustained practice. The Mandali didn't emerge from a workshop or a grant cycle—they formed through years of listening, training, and collective work.

Their mission is is to nurture a platform for oral histories that have largely remained outside recorded and written archives.

Shilpa Mudbi: A Decade of Listening

Anchoring the performance is Shilpa Mudbi—vocalist, theatre practitioner, and co-founder of the Urban Folk Project. Shilpa's path to folk music is deeply personal. Born in Bangalore but rooted in Mudbi, a village in northernmost Karnataka, she learned many of these songs from her grandmother Gundamma. When Gundamma passed, Shilpa made a choice: move to Kalaburgi and dedicate herself to the region's vanishing folk forms.

For over a decade, her work has focused on the folk traditions of North Karnataka with particular attention to voice, labour, caste, and modes of transmission. She's collected over 60 songs—sobane (wedding songs), jogula (lullabies), work songs, mourning songs. Her practice foregrounds ethical process, collaboration, and continuity over extraction. As she puts it: "If I do not have a great relationship with the artists I've learned from, I do not have the confidence to practice their art."

This isn't preservation for preservation's sake. It's about relationships—between teacher and student, past and present, margin and mainstream.

Why This Matters at Kochi Biennale

The Kochi-Muziris Biennale has always been a space where unexpected encounters happen—where contemporary art meets Kerala's layered history of trade, migration, and cultural exchange. Nammu Haada extends that conversation geographically, pulling in the sound world of a region most visitors have never heard.

The venue itself carries weight. Bastion Bungalow—built in 1667, originally a Dutch colonial residence—now hosts many of the Biennale's performance programmes. There's something fitting about songs of labour and resistance filling a space built by empire.

Details

Event: Nammu Haada (Our Songs) – Folk Music Performance
By: Kalaburgi Kala Mandali with Shilpa Mudbi
Date: 8 February 2026
Time: 8:00 PM
Venue: Pavilion, Bastion Bungalow, Fort Kochi
Presented by: Kochi Biennale Foundation & Urban Folk Project

If you're in Fort Kochi, this is one evening worth rearranging your schedule for. Come early, settle in, and let 900 kilometers of oral history wash over you like the sea nearby.

Related: Explore our complete Kochi-Muziris Biennale 2025 Guide for more performances, walkthroughs, and daily schedules.