A Long Night of Literature
Readings from German prose and poetry hosted jointly by the Max Mueller Bhavan, Pro Helvetia New Delhi, Austrian Cultural Forum and The German Book Office in collaboration with the India International Centre.
In an effort to build audiences for contemporary writing in German in the Indian subcontinent the Austrian Cultural Forum, the German Book Office, Max Mueller Bhavan and Pro Helvetia New Delhi will jointly host readings from prose and poetry in collaboration with the India International Centre on the occasion of the World Book Fair.
The authors will read from the original. Translations will be available for those interested and the sessions will be moderated in English by local literary experts.
Date: Saturday 30 January 2010
Time: 7 pm onwards
Venue: India International Centre Annexe Lecture Room
Max Mueller Marg, New Delhi 110003
Schedule
7.20 pm Welcome by Marilen Daum, Max Mueller Bhavan Delhi
7.30 pm Arnold Stadler with Puneet Kaur
8.00 pm Peter Rosei
8.30 pm Break
8.45 pm Nora Eugenie Gomringer with Dr Brinda Bose
9.15 pm Peter Pannke with Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato
9.45 pm Break
10.00 pm Stephan Thome with Mridula Koshy
10.30 pm Bas Boettcher and Dalibor Markovic
Nora-Eugenie Gomringer, Switzerland
Nora-Eugenie Gomringer, born in 1980, has published four volumes of poetry, articles,radio plays, short stories and prose miniatures. She has received several awards for poetry and fellowships, and her collaboration with musicians, painters and performers gave her the opportunity to spend months working in Russia, Venice, the US, Canada and Norway. She holds an MA in American and German Literature and another in Art History. She is currently finishing her PhD. Starting April 2010 she will be principal of an international artist residency in Bamberg, Germany. Nora's poetry is translated into Swedish, French, English and Polish.
Moderated by Dr Brinda Bose, Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Delhi
Peter Pannke, Germany
Peter Pannke, a German indologist, sinologist and musicologist describes himself as a singer, dreamer and storyteller. He is a well-known broadcaster with more than 4,000 features and radio plays to his credit. He has contributed immensely to bringing Indian traditions to culturally interested audiences in Germany and was awarded the Rabindranath Tagore Cultural Prize in October 2009. His book Dreamtalker - Songs, Poems, Essays has been released by Daastaan, New Delhi in January 2010. Moderated by Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya Tato, Publisher, Daastaan.
Peter Rosei, Austria
Peter Rosei was born in Vienna in 1946. He obtained a doctorate in law from the University of Vienna in 1968 and commenced his career as a writer in 1972, and gained critical acclaim with his novel Wer war Edgar Allan? (Who was Edgar Allan?) (1977) which was turned into a movie by director Michael Haneke in 1984. A majority of his work has been translated into English, and he has won many awards. His latest novel, Das große Töten (The Big Kill), was published in 2009. Peter Rosei also works as a translator and editor.
Stephan Thome, Germany
Stephan Thome was born in 1972 in Biedenkopf in Germany. He studied Philosophy at Freie Universität in Berlin and spent three years studying Chinese and Japanese at universities in Nanking, Taipei and Tokyo. After obtaining his PhD in Philosophy in 2004 he moved to Taipei where he still lives and does research on modern Confucian philosophy. His first novel Grenzgang (Walking the Border) was published by Suhrkamp in 2009 and was shortlisted for the German Book Prize. It was awarded the aspekte-Literaturpreis for best first novel of 2009. Moderated by Mridula Koshy, Writer.
Arnold Stadler, Germany
Arnold Stadler was born in 1954, and studied Catholic Theology in Munich and Rome, then German Literature in Freiburg and Cologne. The author, who was awarded an honorary doctorate by the Freie Universität in Berlin in 2006, lives in Küsten and Berlin. Stadler has won numerous literary awards, including the 1999 Georg Büchner Prize and the 2009 Kleist Prize. He will read from his novel A Charming Scrap Dealer.
Moderated by Puneet Kaur, Faculty Member, Max Mueller Bhavan.
Bas Boettcher, Germany
Bas Boettcher, born 1974, is one of the most outstanding German spoken word poets. Being famous for his sophisticated poetry style, Bas has been active in the German poetry slam scene since the early 1990s – his dynamic and rhythmic poetry has won him one prize after another at numerous slam competitions since. The performer’s reputation has earned him invitations to perform all over the world, always enthusing his audience by his captivating lyrics and his highly developed linguistic skills. “Neonomade” is Bas’ latest publication.
India Through The Lenses Of Alain Daniélou & Raymond Burnier
A selection of photographs by Raymond Burnier, renowned photographer from Switzerland and Alain Daniélou, Indologist, musician, painter and art historian from France. (1936-54)
India Through The Lenses Of Alain Daniélou And Raymond Burnier is an initiative of the Alain Daniélou India Committee in collaboration with the India International Centre (IIC)m ProHelvetia (New Delhi) the Alain Daniélou Centre (Zagarolo,Italy). Curated by Samuel Berthet and Anne Tual.
Date: 21 to 28January 2010
Venue: India International Centre, New Delhi
A selection of photographs by Raymond Burnier, renowned photographer from Switzerland and Alain Daniélou, Indologist, musician, painter and art historian from France. Burnier and Daniélou lived in Varanasi for almost twenty years (1936-54) and documented temple sculpture and recorded Indian music. The photographs on view reveal life in India from the middle of 1930s to the end of the 1950s
Raymond Burnier and Alain Daniélou's remarkable work of creating an artistic inventory of the motives and sculptures found on mediaeval temples, remains today an invaluable heritage for the aesthetic and semantic apprehension of the civilization of the subcontinent. It has laid a milestone with regards to anterior and posterior photograph collections dedicated to India. It conjugates a scientific approach, either by the artists' collaboration with art historians like Stella Kramrisch and Alice Boner, or by Alain Daniélou's personal production. It was used to accompany the prolific and pioneering series of world music realized under the banner of the International Institute for Comparative Music Studies and Documentation, as well as for numerous publications on Indian culture, thought and arts under the aegis of Unesco.
Whether it was music or sculpture Alain Daniélou’s constant concern was with valuing the artists behind the work of art we admire hence their originality. Moreover, as he says in his texts, he places himself in a relationship of singularity and “momentariness” as a lever of universalism and timelessness.
Some of these photographs made up what was the first photograph exhibition at the Metropolitan Museum in New York in 1949, an exhibition that was held in India in 1948, in Calcutta, and later in France in 1950. Before settling in Benares, the two artists’ first anchorage is Santiniketan. They are special guests of Rabindranath Tagore. From 1932 to 1937, they shared the life of the poet’s asram during long stays. In Benares, Daniélou carried out a documentation of Indian music and dance. He became a recognized musicologist and with Omkarnath Thakur he founded the first musicology department of the Benares Hindu University. Their house Rewa Kothi was transformed into a salon de musique and a recording studio that saw artists like Ravi Shankar, Alla Akbar, Ragunath Prasanna, Hiran Lal and Shyam Lal, Swami Parvatikar etc.
Photos by Raymond Burnier were exhibited in Musée de l'Elysée in Lausanne in 1982 and where included in the retrospective on India the next year along with photos by Cartier Bresson or Ella Maillard. The photo displayed in this catalogue and this exhibition are a unique selection made from the original collection by the Alain Daniélou India Committee on the occasion of the first international seminar dedicated to his work and legacy in 2008 held in Benares and in Delhi.
Strange Lines
An international multilingual theatre collaboration based on the graphic novel anthology ‘When Kulbhushan Met Stöckli’ at the 12th Bharat Rang Mahotsav organised by the National School of Drama, New Delhi.
Pro Helvetia – Swiss Arts Council presents
Strange Lines
an international multilingual theatre collaboration
based on the graphic novel anthology ‘When Kulbhushan Met Stöckli’
at the 12th Bharat Rang Mahotsav organised by the National School of Drama, New Delhi
on Sunday 10 January 2010 at 2:30 pm and 6:00 pm
at Bahumukh, National School of Drama Bahawalpur House
1 Bhagwandas Road New Delhi 110 001
Cast
Amit Saxena & Julia Perazzini
Concept and Direction
Amitesh Grover
Credits
Text Work & New Writing – Amit Saxena, Julia Perazzini and Keshav Kumar
Video Design – Michel Weber
Sound Design - Ish S
Drawing – Dheerendra Dwivedi
Production – Mukesh
Documentation & Exhibition – Philippe Daerendinger
Lights Design – Srikant
Design & Assistant Direction – Kumaradas T N
Synopsis
The departure point of this theatrical collaboration is a comics collaboration – When Kulbhushan Met Stockli - recently released by HarperCollins Publishers, India. It is created by 19 graphic novelists who express the shock, strangeness & humour in encountering the ‘other’ land/people in their stories and drawings. In Strange Lines, two people write letters to each other. They write about themselves, their lives, their cities and their nations. They draw their bodies and imagine the other’s. And then, they meet. The project seeks to play with the young art of graphic novel, the theatricality in drawing and ways in which drawing and theatre can come together to present notions of ‘Home and Away’, ‘Nativity and Foreignness’. Some stories from the book are adapted to form the narrative for the show, while others are improvised from the performers’ own lives.
Profile of the Director
Amitesh Grover is a theatre director, multimedia artist and pedagogue. Born 1980, he has created 15 Performances & Mixed-Media Installations, which have taken a total of 85 shows across 6 countries till December 2009. His practice has focused on exploring the live interface between the body and the media in performance. His work has been shown in Switzerland, United Kingdom, China, Romania, Oman and India. He is the recipient of Sangeet Natak Akademi (Bismillah Khan) Award for Theatre Direction (2009), was awarded Pro Helvetia Grant for Artist Residency in Switzerland (2008) and received The Charles Wallace Scholarship Award (2005). He has also been on the jury of TheatreSpektakel’08. A National School of Drama, India alumnus, he completed his MA (Performance Arts) from University of Arts London, UK in 2006. At present, he lectures at National School of Drama, India and is a freelance artist. His work, thoughts & media reviews are available online at http://amiteshgrover.blogspot.com/
Entry:
For tickets contact National School of Drama at 011 - 23073647 or visit www.nsdtheatrefest.com
