We are excited to announce IndianRaga Competitions for Indian musicians and dancers in Beginner, Intermediate and Advanced categories across different age groups. Performance is a critical part of arts training, and we are happy to be able to offer a platform for your talent to be recognized by audiences across the world. There is a new contest every month on a different theme. The entries will be evaluated on the basis of technique, creativity and other aspects. Winning performances will be showcased on the IndianRaga Facebook and other social media channels for the world to see, and we hope you find this to be an exciting opportunity to keep growing and performing!
Participants can send more than one entry in a particular category by paying appropriate entry fees but only one entry per month will be considered for the Leaderboard positions.
We recommend participants to upload the videos on Youtube (as unlisted or public) and submit the Youtube links in the Registration form.
We are launching the IndianRaga Monthly Competitions – 2024 Season! This is how it works. Each month, you get points for participating, being a runner up and for winning, and your score keeps adding up – so its really about being consistent and regular with your training! An ongoing leaderboard will be maintained, where you can look up the leaders in each category and also keep track of your participation and points history. The overall winners will be announced at the end of the year. You need to obtain minimum 60 points to find a place on the leaderboard.
Please note that the same entry cannot be repeated in different months.
Please note that we may not announce a winner in any category if the performances are not upto mark. Also if there are more worthy entries, we may announce more than one winner in a category also.
Here is how you earn points monthly:
3 points for Participation
6 points for being declared a Runner Up
8 points for being declared a Winner
1. Regularity and Practice: You get a meaningful goal and motivation per month to practice, perfect and present. Say goodbye to procrastination and get regular with your performance!
2. Global Platform: With high-quality participants applying from all over the world, you get to know where you stand in your genre and learn from peers
3. Features on Social Media: Winners in each category every month are promoted through IndianRaga’s highly popular facebook page. Your work gets showcased to thousands of connoisseurs and audiences across the world, and many of our past contest winners became popular amongst audiences! Please note that the entry needs to be accessible for viewers to see otherwise we reserve the right to not post it or remove it even after posting.
4. Posting on our website: All winning and runner up entries are posted on our website in the Results section every month.
5. Discounted Feedback Opportunities: Season Winners get discounts on IndianRaga Certification, Online Raga Jam, IndianRaga Fellowship and few more programs. They will also be given e-certificates.
Certification is our unique, timestamp-based, detailed feedback which is actionable and meaningful, and will help you know exactly what your strengths and weaknesses are and how to work on them!
Online Raga Jam participation helps you to collaborate with other artists in your genre and is a stepping stone towards becoming an IndianRaga Fellow!
Content
1. Applicants in Advanced categories are encouraged to showcase advanced techniques of improvization (Carnatic/Hindustani), or nuances that are expected of an advanced category applicant
2. 3-5 mins is the ideal time limit for entries. We will accept entries that are shorter or longer too, but please note that selection panel will evaluate parts of it and is not expected to see the entire performance if it is longer
3. If you are participating in multiple months, please do NOT repeat your entries. We reserve the right to disqualify a repeat performance even if it is of high quality.
4.We do not encourage autotune or pitch correction for singers, and would prefer that dancers submit pieces that are continuous and unedited. Our selection panel reserves the right to disqualify entries that seem to have been tampered with to boost quality through artificial means of any form.
Presentation
1. Please do not have any idols, religious elements or portraits of Gods in the video.
2. The entries selected will be posted on our website and facebook page, so please ensure wearing decent clothes.
IndianRaga reserves the right to not feature such videos on our social media even if the performer is selected as a winner
Video Shoot Guidelines
We do not expect professionally produced videos, but at a bare minimum please have a plain background, bright lighting, and an angle such that the performer is looking straight at the camera horizontally instead of down at it. Please also do not have shaky cameras. See this video for some more guidelines and best practices
Open to dancers and musicians from any genre!
You can apply in any category that you feel comfortable, but if you need help figuring out which one you belong to, here’s a rough estimate
BEGINNER : Less than 3 years of training
INTERMEDIATE : 3 to 6 years of training
ADVANCED : More than 6 years of training
Categories:
Carnatic Music
Hindustani Music
Semi-classical/folk/devotional/regional music
Movie Songs
Classical Dance
Semi-classical/Folk/Fusion/Bollywood Dance
The theme of the month is a general guidance so people can practice and submit entries with diversity. We understand that for some categories, specially movie songs, it may not always be possible to submit an entry with the theme of the month.
January : Your Favorite Piece! Start the New Year with your favorite piece
February : Shiva. Present a piece that is on or related to Lord Shiva
March : Spring/Basant/Harvest/Happiness – Maybe add a folk touch
April : Present an intense piece. For music, it can be an intense raga or composition, for dance it would be a piece set to intense music
May : Lullaby/Vatsalya/Childhood
June : Animal/Vahana/Animal-God
July : Desh Raag/Patriotism
August : Ganesha
September : Dussehra/Navratri/Devi
October : Diwali/Rama/Light
November : ThanksGiving/Guru Vandana
December : Happy/Energetic/New Beginning
RULES :
1. For the classical music categories electronic or regular tanpura is mandatory, any other basic accompaniment is not mandatory but you can feel free to have it.
2. Try to have a plain background. Please do not have any portraits or pictures of Gods, or any other religious symbolism in the videos.
3. There is no time limit. Please make it as short or as long as you like, and are able to hold audience attention.
4. You can submit links of previous performances as long as the main applicant is seen/heard clearly.
5. Each applicant can submit more than one entry if he/she chooses, but maximum one entry per each category is allowed.
Prizes and Benefits :
1. Entries of all winners will be featured to thousands of audiences on IndianRaga’s social media channels. To see how much engagement our videos get, just see any video on www.facebook.com/indianragaproject and see the comments and shares.
2. Earn points every month to get a place in leaderboard.
3. Top Winners at the end of the year will receive a select set of courses from IndianRaga’s Online Courses for free on unique, interesting topics. They also get discount coupons for some of the other IndianRaga Programs.
