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M.A.D

M.A.D., an acronym for Music, Art and Dance is essentially an off-the-wall, interactive journey filled with fun tabletop “makes”, dynamic performances, a splash of slapsticks and BIG art stunts in the studio and in the town near you.  Each week, our three hosts discover a theme through art along with music and dance, with the occasional help of M.A.D. kids.  Using familiar items, they explore and create innovative and engaging objects—some can be done at home and some you couldn’t try in a million years!   

Recent features on M.A.D. include:

Episode 36 - Sculpture
In the Sculpture episode of M.A.D Rob uses some very unconventional methods and materials to make sculptures. A quick and easy way to makes sculptures by scrunching a plastic bag filled with plaster of Paris. The next time you’ll think twice before chucking that plastic bag!! Your stockings got the ladder? Rob shows you the fastest way to make good useof old stockings. Put them onto wire frames and you have an original art piece.

Wrap away newspaper and tape to make those amazing action figures. Brush on a metallic finish or paint them bright… wrapping paper around sticks can be fun too!! And what’s more they look like realistic metal mouldings. A tug here and a push there, and your inexpensive soap bars can be sculpted into the most amazing shapes. Rob’s golden touch at its very best!! Sanika on the Tanpura, Rohit on the Flute and Yeti on the Table!! That’s the jam up in our music section. What does Rob have in common with the Presidentsof the United States?Well they both have a sculpted mountain to their names!! Rob does a Mount Robmore and creates a thermocol sculpture of himself in different moods.

Episode 34 – Circus
All of us have grown up seeing the circus and Rob tells you just how you can recreate one sitting at home. He shows a very easy technique to create a dancing girl who actually dances on the tip of your finger. Then he makes a trapeze artist who shows his stunts when the attached is tensed and rotated. The trio who perform next include a juggler, a man riding a unicycle and a performer on stilts… right out of the circus. Then Rob has an invited guest, Pradipto who demonstrates the paper scouring technique to create a Ring master training a Lion in a Circus arena. The show ends with a big Big picture… as big as real life where Rob and his friends an Elephant doing a circus stunt.

Episode 32 - Ancient Civilization
Rob makes the MAD fans go back in time in this episode, as he re-creates the Art of various ancient civilizations. The episode kicks off with rob teaching the mad fans how to make the ancient Chinese bamboo reed painting. Then Rob made an extraordinary ancient Egyptian mask using ordinary material available. For our music segment we had a young maestro play violin for us and for the hard make Rob made a sundial just the way it was made in the olden times, using the principles of magnetism, some geometry and of course a lot of Art. For the Big Picture Rob surprised everybody yet again by making a giant Sphinx using hay and card board boxes.

Episode 31 - Gluey Art
This episode kicked off with MAD fans making some cool pieces with glue and glitter. For the medium make Rob made a painting out of glue color and then used combs to make patterns and textures on it. And for the music segment we had a mime artist who did an act with a ball that refuses to part from him and sticks like glue. Then for the music segment rob performed with Sid. For the hard segment Rob made a huge spider web out of glue and then created small spiders to go with it. And to round off the sticky gluey art episode Rob made a colorful gecko by sticking away many post-it notes.

Episode 30 – Printing
The printing episode had Rob teaching some MAD fans, how to do Styrofoam printing with Styrofoam cups and plates found around the house. This was followed by the medium make where Rob used the roller printing technique and showed us that this could be also used for printing T-shirts. For the music segment we had a talented 8 year old boy from Kolhapur, who played the tabla. Then Rob tells us how to make collagraph print using thread, pins and other whacky stuff. In the Big picture Rob made a huge car using rickshaw images and screen printing them on a huge piece of cloth.

Episode 29 - Monsters
The monsters episode begins with Rob using handmade paper and just little bit of paint to make scary fingers. The medium make featured a monster door knocker in which the monsters mouth opens and shuts with each knocking sound. The dance segment had Sid dress up like a monster and do a dance with our dance troupe playing naughty kids who want to wake up the sleeping monster. Rob then made a monster island which was very reminiscent of the island in King Kong… with a rocky cave shaped like a mean beast. In the Big Picture Rob made a huge image of a gorilla ready to break out through the walls, using rubber tyres, plaster of Paris and thermocol.

Episode 28 - Flight
This episode is set against the backdrop of the Ahmedabad Kite festival. Rob is a mood do some kite flying and so he does a quick getaway; keeping Deepti and Sid wondering where he disappeared. Rob kick starts this very special outdoor episode by making the simplest of all flying toys, the boomerang; using Mount-board!! He then goes on to make a very fancy airplane out of Styrofoam plates. Later he meets Skye Morrison, a kite expert, who demonstrates how to make a box kite. The music and dance was combined with an air show by our very own flying wizards; the Suryakirans. The exciting activities of the international kite festival at Ahmedabad that brings together kite makers and kite flyers from across the world was showcased in the artist profile section. And the big picture was a huge cloth bird that soared in the skies.

Episode 27 – Pirates
The pirate’s episode kicks off with Deepti in her and Sid in their Pirate rigs and Rob descending from a rope ladder greeting everybody with a big Ahoy!!. As Rob the captain of the Pirates, takes charge he makes an ancient looking pirate gold coins out of Styrofoam plates. Then Rob made a periscope that all young pirates can use to do some serious vigilance exercises for spotting the treasure laden places… without being seen themselves!! The music segment had Rob, Sid and Deepti belt out a shanty (pirate song). In the hard make Rob made a pirate ship fit into a bottle… which at the beginning looks impossible to do. For the Big Picture Rob and his sailors went to Madh Island, and transformed a fishing boat into a majestic pirate ship.

Episode 26 – Illusion
“What you see is not what it is.” The art of visual illusion is explored by Rob in this episode. Rob makes a Thaumatrope with two MAD fan club kids. When one spins the thaumatrope an image is revealed. The image is of a hat, mike and face coming together to show a man singing. The second is a cool folded paper illusion where two images are joined together, which when viewed from two opposite ends will reveal two different pictures. For the hard make rob made a mirror box illusion, where you basically stick two mirrors to each other and then stick images on either sides which finally looks like two images on either sides. In the artist profile we showcased a young magician from Bangalore. The big picture was a huge image of a juggler with 3 juggling balls, which can only be viewed from a certain angle and otherwise looks like wooden cut-outs.

Episode 25 – Dinosaur
The episode starts with rob and Sid scaring Deepti with a huge dinosaur cutout. In the easy make rob makes a dinosaur with hair clips and clothes line clips. In the medium make rob makes a cd dino rack where one can store their CD’s on the back of the dino. For the hard make rob made a very realistic looking dinosaur fossil out of cardboard and then finishes it by sticking sand and mud on it. In the music segment we had Satwik who played the piano for us and for the dance segment kids from Mallika Sarabhai’s Institute, Darpana, perform a Gujrati folk dance for us. In the big picture Rob and his friends made a huge dinosaur out of automobile junk, which stands as a permanent installation at the National Institute of Design, Ahmedabad.