Ramakka and I

A performance by Shilpa Mudbi and Ramavva Jogathi

Duration: 90 minutes (with translation)

Ramakka and I features two women: Shilpa Mudbi, researcher and founder of the Urban Folk Project, and Ramavva Jogathi, a traditional artist of the Jogathi tradition rooted in North Karnataka. In this unscripted, intimate conversation woven with Jogathi songs, they pose questions to each other — about their histories, their choices, their work, and their entanglements.  Ramakka and I becomes a moving archive of lived memory, survival, artistic labour, and everyday resilience. It is not a polished duet, but a live negotiation of politics, pain, and the radical act of staying in conversation

About the Artists: 

Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota is a theatre-maker, vocalist, and cultural researcher whose practice moves between performance, song, and community. Rooted in the folk traditions of North Karnataka, her work explores how voice holds memory, labour, and belonging. Through the Urban Folk Project, which she co-founded, Shilpa works with singers, storytellers, and ritual practitioners to reimagine oral traditions within contemporary performance. Her long-standing collaborations with artists such as Ramakka Jogathi have led to pieces like Ramakka and I and Yellamma and Other Stories, which travel between field, stage, and shrine. Shilpa’s artistic inquiry rests at the intersection of caste, gender, and sound—listening to the ways voices from the margins shape the collective imagination. She continues to live and work in Kalaburagi, gathering songs, stories, and silences that form the pulse of her performances.

Ramakka Jogathi is a transgender artist, musician, and teacher from Golralli village in Bellary district, Karnataka. She belongs to the Jogathi community and is a lifelong practitioner of the Chowdhury, a rare single-string instrument traditionally played by trans women in ritual and devotional performances across northern Karnataka. With over two decades of experience, Ramakka has performed and taught extensively, keeping alive the songs, stories, and spiritual knowledge embedded in the Chowdhury tradition. She has collaborated with theatre and performance artist Shilpa Mudbi Kothakota for over eight years, including in the acclaimed performance Ramakka and I, which foregrounds the voices and lives of Jogathi women through music and storytelling.