Māre gān workshop cum training- An approach to continue the motion

On September, 2014 we will gather for Rabha Folklore archiving and preservation.The outcome will be realised at a community space of Goalpara, Assam with an environment of village envelop. http://youtu.be/woYT6pscdII

poem

Where are you?

Can you come for a moment?

Do not you want to see the earth is weeping so deep insight?

For her uncontrolled rapidity

Of voices

Of slang

Of loves

Of terrors

And so many other pieces of obvious emotions!

It becomes wilder than u made!

Why do not you come here and take her with you for a moment?

Where there are plenty of peace and calm

Where the heart never cry for another heart

Neither suffers for nothing strange

Where face is clean as core inside

Where there is no dark

Where there is no pain

No tears

….

Or if u can make her dumb so that she needs not to reply and

There will be no misuse of mother’s affection

Make her deaf so that she cannot feel as the bearer of cruelty & voices

Make her blind so that she needs not to witness the bitter truth,

Else, you can come every night to her

Make her sleep giving pledge to protect

From terrible inhuman gentlemen

…

I am here to speak to you once

The dark world

The dark body and

The dark wishes of those

Who are not known to me and some are closer intimates

I have few minutes and talked with you for a while…

Did you visit her??

When I met her last time

It was almost finished her painting with blood and sharing it

To the heaven in the bright light.

On World Dance Day,29th of April-2014

Is it logical to say the ‘Dance’ as a treatment of sufferings in human life?

Dance, a physical artistic activity nevertheless thought as a treatment of common nuisance. Besides entertaining to restless mind in podium, the dance is also helpful in other way around both for the dancers and the viewers or the audience. My indication is towards the ‘healing’, a process of emotional and spiritual remedy from the abnormal state of mind. The abnormality which may grows from common trauma, troubles etc. All of us face our life more or less through mental sufferings.

History tells us about the shamans as well as other healing practices exist in different corners of the world. In fact, they are still believed among many group of people. The Deodhani practice of India (celebrated as a shamanic festival every year at Kamakhya temple of Guwahati, Assam) can be drawn attention in this regard. Healing teaches us material and non-material world, mostly implemented to those who partly lost their life-essence. Life essence is the energy that keeps us going, takes interested in life-in learning things and in challenges. It also helps us to trust ourselves. Most of us face depressions, fatigue in the cause of traumatic situation where part of life essence is lost. Those people might involve in spiritual matters to understand the ordinary or material world, might obsess with the trauma, and might feel something is missing. Those people feel lack of energy, depressed, ill and untrusting due to the emotional effect of the trauma. A healer can get back the essence of life. A shamanic healer can find and retrieve one's life essence. Their healing technique is called soul retrieval. The shamanistic dance, folk dance, dance with spiritual overtone, Martial art, dance of popular culture etc. might have something else beyond their artistic moves and bents. These arts try to speak not only the rhythm but also a narration through moves.

The world is growing day by day acquiring unlimited sources of achievement. We are grabbing a lot at ease but at the same we are also not free from social and political strain. The traditional lore binds us together with our people in a cultural situation. We often become gender sensitive as because of controlled by rites and rituals made by our previous sufferer. Those are actually the lore inherited in generation from past and also very much reflected in various practices or social forms such as folk dance and music. The free flow of mental and physical energy is allowed to flourish in various folk dances.

Dancers find themselves confident to express and communicate their sub conscious desire. Dance helps to divert the concentration from an ordinary life into a different world of beautification with passion, control and balance. It may help to be logical, cultural, compassionate and spiritual. Dance, as a form of Narrative Art uses songs/lyrics or rhythmic beat to communicate the viewers. Performing a narrative or story Indian Dancers traditionally portray the mythological story and circumstances such as of Krishna-Radha, Ram-Sita etc. The artists temporarily get into the characters to uplift the audience about the scenic beauty and it is said that the characters of portraying spirit are imagined to be embodied into the dancers and uplift the souls of both dancer and audience. This kind of spiritual healing help to flow the energy freely that again helps to transform the inner being.

Different Dance movements and twist of the body also help to strengthen the bodily problems. Research said that the popular western Belly dance has a positive approach towards the difficult stages of womanhood such as menstruation, sexualities and bodies. Health requires a free flow of energy that one can accomplish his/her desire. Dance can be used in feelings, when one’s energy is blocked in many ways.

An Indian Dance has possible quality to uplift the inner being into a world of cheerful and self esteem. Dances have their own language of expression and Indian Dance has definite nomenclature of kinesics (Angahara and Karana) along with elaborated meaningful gesture. This might help the dancers to express the unsaid in an environment of symbolic beautification. The traditional Indian dance has seductive, ascentic as well as yogic postures that help to balance a body.

Organisations such as American Dance Therapy Association and Association of the Dance movement therapy, UK have been maintaining professionally the education throughout the field. The therapy is a treatment towards anxiety, depression and severe stress processes through four kinds of stages such as preparation, incubation, illumination & evaluation. Developmental movement therapy can be useful for people of all ages and may also help people recover from strokes and brain injury, even in extreme cases.

Though the associations mentioned about the benefits from diseases such as dementia, depression, anxiety, learning disabilities, cancer, schizophrenia etc. there are also critical review of ‘unproven’ dance therapy has been marked.

Healing is always an urge for everybody to keep balance of our bodily problems and nuisance. We carry our healthy life depend upon doctors, physiotherapists, yoga, astrologers and many. Can we go to the dancers to heal ourselves?

Let’s surrender to the dancers as real healers on this World Dance Day!

'Spotlight on Kolkata Sanved-saving lives through Dance '

Kala Samannayaa 2014: In between of Performance Art and Performing

The Art is always understood in the realm of taste and entertaining through any medium. But,the global confluence of Art has a different version in the millennium. I can see the Avantegardists’ are back in the land of Assam to raise a voice through Art for the sake of Art. They do not only like to entertain people by their artistry, also highly passionate to create a different but meaningful line of attack. The contemporary political and traditional society surround of the artists are the main fuel to adapt these new approaches of Art.

The ground of Art has been tried to realise in an assimilating and culturally imbibing compound of Silpagram in Guwahati, Assam recently. It was an Art happening cum Festival titled Kala Samannayaa 2014-an International Art showcasing event. I participated in this Festival as a member-volunteer, arranger, observer and an Art lover. The idea of building up the Kala Samannaya imagined the world with its various multicoloured artistic cultures as if various multicoloured small globes are moving within a large globe (the logo of Kala Samannayaa).

The formulation of Kala Samannaya was introduced to be believed as an evidence of the assimilation of Art ability. Kala the Indian terminology to understand the knowledge of Art has been implemented in the context of multicultural as well as multiethnic perception. The Assamese word Samannaya means the cultural integration and hence Kala Samannayaa indicates the absorption of Art ability of many kinds. Sharing knowledge of Art in a tangible and intangible way required a deep breath from the very beginning of the Festival when the artists and Art lovers were in their own way of experimenting taste. At the end, the entire exhibiting forms of Art showed a reflection of the social impact at global perspective.

Imbibing very many forms into one platform was indeed a hard endeavour. Being a research background of folklore and dance enthusiasm I was intensely busy to find out interlink between the art forms or to draw a common language from them. I was happy to see different innovative Indian based Art forms some of which had traditional fervour or some were contemporary. The inducing context of the Festival and the pre-prepared subject matter helped to reduce the gap between the forms but not the artists. It might be a challenge for all to prove a collective thought over an individual contemplation. There were visual Art forms, theatre, dance and musical performance among which the medium of visual Art perhaps were anew in the region to hypothesise the theme of the Festival i.e., ‘Humanity’.

The new medium of ‘Performance Art’ according to the concerned artists was prepared during the Festival camp. I have seen three or four of them were conceptually different in their performance. The Arts were reflected the suppressive hierarchy and an awkward part of the social system of the Nation. These Art performances were not felt pleasant but reasonable, faithful and direct towards its expression. There were no scripts and the duration of their performances were short (maximum of 5-10 min). The expressions were spoken word, direct communication with the audience without an essence of familiar theatrical performance. They were completely aware of the audience and hence could be considered as different from the performing artists’ category. Their performances were direct and simple (not dramatic) incorporating satirical elements and undoubtedly conceptual. Few of them were about the behavioural attitude of people which acclaimed as unnecessary towards building up a culture. For e.g. the usage of words

‘Welcome’ and ‘Thank you’ (Performance Art by Chimuk and his co-performer, West Bengal), the physical activity with massage oil and relaxation (Performance Art  by Jeetin Ranghar and his co-performer, Bangalore). It revealed the protesting of ongoing social system, common adaptable behaviour and attitude of people. They called it ‘Protesting Art’. The artists were seen as a protesting sensible human to fight for the human rights through the medium of Art. It looked more an awareness than an Art. Again, with the symbolic expression and unaware of audience, the performing artists, on the other hand, highly depended on script and hence dramatic norms were revisited through rehearsal.

The dance, music, theatre etc. were all traditionally set up to perform in an elevated area. I was sitting to get involve into the melody and rhythm of the performing items on stage. It was transparent and a polite indirect hypnotisation to get into the rhythm and its meaning. Now, it is important to notify here that most of the Indian performing Arts still follow the Nāṭyaśāstra, the Indian treatise of 2000 years old Dramaturgy ascribed by Bharatamuni. Specially, the concept of Rasa has been tried to maintain in a very traditional way and the audience are passive bearers to get into the essence of the performance. I could see the similarity between the performance Art and performing was the performer’s body with real physical entity in both cases.

Fortunately, I was a part of the unconventional performance ‘Quit from Split’- a pre-event of the Festival. This performance can be regarded as in between of Performance Art and performing a phenomenon. It had no specific time plan and neither a definite beginning. The audience were unwittingly a part of the scene ‘split’ and the musical essence picked up in between the rock and traditional Indian vocal submerged by a narrative dance based on Indian style of Abhinaya. It seemed that traditional India is reviving in case of performance with the help of experiment. I would say that there have been started a movement in this region to create a different language of Art Performance in the realm of indigenous literature, folklore, social structure, political scenario, environmental consciousness, negotiating culture, ethnicity etc. in very many ways. The paradise of Folklore, the land of Assam is welcoming the global perspective of Art. This new emergence of Art can prove anyone can be an artist by simple performance without following any traditional norms.

The complex climax of Art performance in the realm of the Festival connotated self respect and critically avoid violation although amalgamated folk vs. modern, conventional vs. unconventional was just a beginning to overview ‘Art’. Different strategies implemented were Public Art, Art Camp, Children Art workshop, Stage Performance, Performance Art, Exhibition and Installation, Souvenir-an academic account. The theme was intricately difficult to catch in the Art forms but of course among the Art workers. The adjoined/connected people including the organising body, event managers, advisory reputes, guest artists and the participators were seen in a pace of working on the theme concerned. All of them were so much ready and

negotiating to work in a different circumstance and a new platform. The periphery of the Festival showed the negotiation of context, audience and the management. The working body and the performing participators cum artists had also been observed in a state of miscalculation and at the same time pressurised by ‘humanity’. I got a little chance to talk with a few of the artists (there were all together 50 artists). Some of them loved to work in the atmosphere at any circumference but there were also some for whom the Festival was completely void. Nevertheless, the forms had not been seen submerged and made themselves open for all to interpret self, between real and illusionary, corporeal and immortal, transparent and difficult.

Continuous touch of six days in the Festival and bounded by so much of artistry, I found myself interpreting in between of Satirical Performance Art and Performing forms of traditional India, of simple and complex criterion. Honestly, thoughts are still awaiting to put them into the papers. However, for this huge scale of endeavour, I feel responsible to say,

‘A high five to Kala Samannayaa,

 Cheers!!’

Looking forward to see further more approaches to understand many more micro forms.