Abstract
Meander through landscapes with film, Tamil poetry, song and dance.
IDAM:Place is a new performance and screen work by veteran classical Indian dancer, Anandavalli, and filmmaker, Iqbal Barkat. Using live and filmed elements of Indian poetry, dance, music and song, and locating it within the Australian environment, the work is a soulful invocation of place – both present and eternal.
IDAM:Place is inspired by ancient Tamil Sangam poetry which places nature as part of human life, linked to everyday life events at all levels, but also having its own agency and volition. The poems feature in both English and Tamil as conversations across time, place and medium, between a live singer (esteemed Carnatic singer, Arjunan Puveendran) and visual projection of dance and landscapes.
IDAM:Place will feature the Australian debut of the dance film “Anthi”. Tamil for twilight, “Anthi”, evokes a transition – from light into darkness; through the uncertainty of the future towards adaptation, meaning and hope. It is an anthem to the present. Staged in the Australian bush, Anandavalli, performs to “Mukthi Alikkum”, a Tamil song on social justice. “Anthi”, connects ancient South-Asian dance and music forms to an Australian landscape, a setting witnessing the horror of human folly and heedlessness.
IDAM:Place is a hybrid artwork that speaks to significant social and aesthetic concerns. IDAM:Place situates insights on the relation between humans and nature from ancient Tamil poetry in a dialogic encounter with insights from avant-garde/poetic film aesthetics and environment aesthetics. It gives an experience of landscapes in distinctively aesthetic terms through an emphasis on perceptual qualities. Engaging with multiple art forms (digital media, Bharatnatyam, Carnatic music, Akam Poetry) across space and time, IDAM:Place establishes a ‘relational diasporic cultural practice’ that extends the boundaries of space and time and in the process reframes and challenges the local/global, ancient/modern, traditional/contemporary binaries. The work engages with the hybrid understanding of Avtar Brah’s ‘diaspora space’ and extends it to show how tradition itself is already hybridized. The work brings to light the urgent issue of landscape destruction and investigates innovative ways in which creative methodologies can contribute new understandings about the representation of complex historical, philosophical and critical concepts in hybrid practices.
IDAM:Place is a new performance and screen work by veteran classical Indian dancer, Anandavalli, and filmmaker, Iqbal Barkat. Using live and filmed elements of Indian poetry, dance, music and song, and locating it within the Australian environment, the work is a soulful invocation of place – both present and eternal.
IDAM:Place is inspired by ancient Tamil Sangam poetry which places nature as part of human life, linked to everyday life events at all levels, but also having its own agency and volition. The poems feature in both English and Tamil as conversations across time, place and medium, between a live singer (esteemed Carnatic singer, Arjunan Puveendran) and visual projection of dance and landscapes.
IDAM:Place will feature the Australian debut of the dance film “Anthi”. Tamil for twilight, “Anthi”, evokes a transition – from light into darkness; through the uncertainty of the future towards adaptation, meaning and hope. It is an anthem to the present. Staged in the Australian bush, Anandavalli, performs to “Mukthi Alikkum”, a Tamil song on social justice. “Anthi”, connects ancient South-Asian dance and music forms to an Australian landscape, a setting witnessing the horror of human folly and heedlessness.
IDAM:Place is a hybrid artwork that speaks to significant social and aesthetic concerns. IDAM:Place situates insights on the relation between humans and nature from ancient Tamil poetry in a dialogic encounter with insights from avant-garde/poetic film aesthetics and environment aesthetics. It gives an experience of landscapes in distinctively aesthetic terms through an emphasis on perceptual qualities. Engaging with multiple art forms (digital media, Bharatnatyam, Carnatic music, Akam Poetry) across space and time, IDAM:Place establishes a ‘relational diasporic cultural practice’ that extends the boundaries of space and time and in the process reframes and challenges the local/global, ancient/modern, traditional/contemporary binaries. The work engages with the hybrid understanding of Avtar Brah’s ‘diaspora space’ and extends it to show how tradition itself is already hybridized. The work brings to light the urgent issue of landscape destruction and investigates innovative ways in which creative methodologies can contribute new understandings about the representation of complex historical, philosophical and critical concepts in hybrid practices.
| Original language | English |
|---|---|
| Publication status | Published - 2022 |
| Event | Idam:Place - Parramatta Riverside Theatres, Parramatta, Australia Duration: 2 Jul 2022 → 2 Jul 2022 |
Keywords
- place and belonging
- enviroment
- diaspora cultures
- hybrid art