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OUR STORY
Under the sun of Jodhpur, Thorr Collective took root—not as an institution, but as a meeting of kindred minds. Drawn by a shared love for Rajasthan and a will to imagine otherwise, we came together— intentionally—and began to build something living.
We are a group of people—some raised here, some drawn from afar—brought together by a curiosity of how knowledge, art, and education can grow when nurtured with care. In periods of intense joy, creative madness, and collective purpose, we’ve found each other—and in doing so, are finding a way to reimagine the cultural life of the region.
Thorr Collective is not just a name—it’s a living, breathing ecosystem where artists, researchers, hereditary practitioners, and cultural enthusiasts come together to think, talk, document, perform, and co-create. We believe in process over product, in knowledge that lives in stories and songs, in long-term collaborations, and in fun. We resist silos. We cherish orality. We support the folk. And we do so with an optimistic criticality, reimagining inherited structures and working toward decentralization, equity, and sustainability in cultural work. At Thorr, everyone who aligns with this spirit becomes a part of the collective—the door is always open.
Yet, like any evolving entity, Thorr needs roots—anchored and steady—to hold its growing branches —people who hold and shape its direction. Leading this journey are two committed stewards: Mimansha Charan—a writer, translator, and researcher born in Jodhpur —brings a blend of environmental humanities and vernacular knowledge systems. Dr. Ayla Joncheere (Ghent University - IIT Jodhpur - Poornima University), a cultural anthropologist and artist at heart. Her decades-long work with Rajasthani performing arts and oral traditions shapes Thorr’s ethnographic and community-driven ethos.. Together, they form the core team, ensuring that our vision remains both rooted and expansive—just like Rajasthan itself.
OUR THORR COMMUNITY
THORR MANIFESTO
For Cultural Continuity, Kinship,
and the Unfinished
We are Thorr Collective—
a constellation of makers, thinkers, and keepers of tradition.
We gather not to preserve the past,
but to walk with it—into the now.
Rajasthan’s arts are not ornaments.
They are breath, memory, and resistance.
We came together to resist their erasure—
to return depth where there is display,
relationship where there is removal.
We do not just document—we listen.
We do not just preserve—we co-create.
We do not extract—we return.
Ours is a slow practice—
of khejri tree shade, kitchen talk,
of restoring what was fragmented
and weaving futures through care.
Tradition, to us, is not relic but rhythm—
a living negotiation carried in hands,
in stories, in the sweat of dancers
and the silence between songs.
We do not speak about communities—
we speak with them.
Performers, craftspeople, storytellers—
not subjects, but kin. Co-authors. Visionaries.
We build spaces of dignity,
not display.
Concerts as homecomings.
Residencies as relationships.
Archives that breathe.
We believe innovation is a form of reverence—
where old rituals meet new tools,
not to be replaced,
but to be reimagined.
We ask:
Who tells the story?
Who owns the rhythm?
Can technology serve without severing the root?
Thorr is not a brand.
It is a practice of return—
to memory, to land, to each other.
We move locally, reach globally.
We dream of ecosystems, not exhibitions.
Knowledge that sings, not just writes.
This work is slow.
Sometimes invisible.
But in it lies restoration,
recognition, and the radical act
of simply being—together.
We are not here to finish.
We are here to begin—again.
And again.
