body.city

New Perspectives from India

September 19 – November 16, 2003

House of World Cultures, John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10,10557 Berlin

For programme details  -  www.hkw.de

Radha and Krishna listening to a gramophone record
© Jyotindra Jain

Starting September 19, Berlin, a city with a rich cultural heritage, will be showcasing India’s contemporary forms of expression in art, cinema, literature, theatre and music. The new generation in India is evolving a new perspective of creativity and expression, which is gradually assimilating into, and at times motivating, a growing global culture that is equally at home in the west and in the east. The House of World Cultures, Berlin, is presenting the other side of India through body.city – New Perspectives from India, a series of exhibitions, theatre productions, concerts, conferences, films, readings and youth events.

body.city centers around two major exhibitions in the House of World Cultures: -

- subTerrain:artworks in the cityfold (Sept.20 – Nov..16) is an exhibition of contemporary Indian art. The curator Geeta Kapur – one of India ’s leading art historians – has selected works by sixteen artists who have very distinctive reactions to social and political issues in the Indian megalopolis. The vast majority of the works are being exhibited for the first time in Europe, while some were commissioned directly by the House of World Cultures.

© Navjot Altaf

With works by :Navjot Altaf, Sheba Chhachhi, Atul Dodiya, Shilpa Gupta, Subodh Gupta, Anant Joshi, Ranbir Kaleka, Jitish Kallat, Bhupen Khakhar, Sonia Khurana, Nalini Malani, Raghu Rai, N.N.Rimzon, Sharmila Samant, Vivan Sundaram, Vasudha Thozhur.

- Indian Popular Culture.‘The Conquest of the World as Picture ’ (20 September – 16 November 2003) The iconography of everyday Indian life is the subject of this exhibition. Renowned curator and cultural historian Jyotindra Jain has assembled a unique collection of graphic art exhibits, photographs and paintings, and mixed them with discoveries from bazaars, TV clips and film posters to reveal the evolution and development of India ’s popular visual culture in a display ranging from miniature paintings, colonial art, to the billboard painters of today.

20 – 27 September 2003

The theatre programmme explores the fertile ground between Indian myths and everyday realities, featuring artists who have mastered techniques that are often thousands of years old, but who have also worked on contemporary issues and experimented with new theatrical concepts.

India’s three-thousand-year tradition of theatre, still alive today, is dominated by three classical dance forms - Kathakali, Bharata Natyam and Kathak. Curated by Anuradha Kapur (Professor of Acting and Direction at the National School of Drama, Delhi) the Theatre Programme will focus on works by directors and choreographers who have mastered traditional techniques and dramatic forms, yet experiment with new dramatic concepts, explore pressing political concerns and address current social issues as themes. Daksha Sheth, Veenapani Chawla , Abhilash Pillai, Ein Lall und Anuradha Kapur are among the participants. And,for the first time, Sakuntala ,dating from around 400 AD, will be performed by the Gopal Venu ensemble in the Kutiyattam style, India’s oldest Sanskrit form of theatre.

Three interdisciplinary conferences will place body.city squarely at the centre of current academic discourse.

The literature program Voices of Resistance:Real Lives,Imagined Lives presents authors Githa Hariharan,Paul Zacharia, Faustina Bama and Urvashi Butalia. This provides a platform for four contemporary Indian writers to speak on a wide range of issues related to art, society, politics and gender.

Indian Cinema,1974-2003

10 October – 16 November 2003

Curator Ravi Vasudevan has selected around 25 films in all, ranging from opulent Bollywood productions, to documentary and art-house films, revealing how cinema has become the vehicle for reshaping social and cultural space in Indian cities, while simultaneously providing the basis on which a new mass culture could take root.

body.city is presenting different works from various genres covering the years 1974 to 1984. The films include Satya/Truth, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron (Leave it alone,guys), Jukti Takka Arr Gappo/Reason,Debate and a Story, Kabhi Kabhie/Sometimes …, Jana Aranya/Middleman, Tarang/The Wave aka Wages and Profit, Nayakan/Hero, and Ankush/The Goad.

Contemporary Music: Rasalîla – The Play of Emotions

Indian virtuosos meet the Ensemble Modern

31 October – 2 November 2003

Apart from the two exhibitions, the music programme Rasalîla – The Play of Emotions will premiere compositions developed in collaboration by the Ensemble Modern and some of the outstanding Indian musicians and composers. The artistic director of this project is Sandeep Bhagwati, a composer from India, now working in Europe.

Some of the solo musicians and composers include Ganesh Anandan (Canada), Clarence Barlow (Holland,Germany), Uday Bhawalkar (India), Dhruba Ghosh (India,Belgium), Shirish Korde (USA), Shubha Mudgal (India), Aneesh Pradhan (India), Ashok Da Ranade (India), Naresh Sohal (Great Britain), and Param Vir (Great Britain).

Press Contact

House of World Cultures,Press Office,John-Foster-Dulles-Allee 10,10557 Berlin

Christine Regus Phone ++49 30 397 87-153,Fax ++49 30 3948679,

regus@hkw.de

For programme details  -     www.hkw.de

Disclaimer