Interconnected Histories across Continents

Inaugural Session
Welcome: Shri K.N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC
Opening Remarks: Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, IIC-IRD
Inaugural Address: Shri N.N. Vohra, President IIC

The two-day colloquium, ‘Afro-Asian Musical Imaginaries: Interconnected Histories across Continents’ will trace the musical connections that large parts of Asia and Africa forged over centuries of interaction, trade and migrations, seen in traditional and contemporary musical and associated performance practices. 

The sessions consisting of talks, lecture-demonstrations and performances, will engage with conceptual frameworks for understanding connections, comparing ‘classical’ traditions, reflecting on drumming traditions, methodologies of research unto the musics of specific communities, etc. Speakers and performers from India, South Africa, Tanzania, Spain and Britain will participate in the colloquium.

(Organised by the IIC-International Research Division; Recentring Afro-Asia Project, University of Cape Town; and Ambedkar University, Delhi)

https://iicdelhi.in/sites/default/files/2021-09/Final%20Final_AfroAsian…

Registration link for 17th September 2021 2:00 pm, India Time (Mumbai, GMT+05:30)

Click here for Registration

Concept Note

The colloquium, ‘Afro-Asian Musical Imaginaries: Interconnected Histories across Continents’ organized by the International Research Division, IIC, will trace the musical connections that large parts of Asia and Africa forged over centuries of interaction, trade and migrations, seen in traditional and contemporary musical and associated performance practices. These connections are seen also in the Indian subcontinent, through north-western routes into west Asia and extending into north and west Africa, carrying the lineages of Silk Road and Indian Ocean World interactions. 
These interactions developed over centuries—and in fact, millennia—have impacted how societies are structured and how social life and sociality are organised in different parts of Africa and Asia. Various communities across these regions and their contemporary ritual, musical and performance practices can be seen to reflect these longue dureé connections. However, a lot of this history, as well as how it gets reflected in how people live their lives in the modern period, is not commonly known. A substantial body of research, as well as performance practice, has been reflecting on this, and has brought to the fore interesting interdisciplinary ways to understand these interconnected histories.
Music and musical traditions in different parts of Afro-Asia bear the imprint of this interaction. The colloquium will reflect strands of current research on musical traditions of medieval Afro-Asia that allows us a glimpse into contemporary practices. 
Sessions, consisting of talks, lecture-demonstrations and performances, will engage with conceptual frameworks for understanding connections, comparing ‘classical’ traditions, reflecting on drumming traditions, methodologies of research into the musics of specific communities, etc. Speakers and performers will be from India, South Africa, Tanzania and Spain.      

 Interconnected Histories across Continents

Inaugural Session
Welcome: Shri K.N. Shrivastava, Director, IIC
Opening Remarks: Dr. Sudha Gopalakrishnan, Executive Director, IIC-IRD
Inaugural Address: Shri N.N. Vohra, President IIC

The two-day colloquium, ‘Afro-Asian Musical Imaginaries: Interconnected Histories across Continents’ will trace the musical connections that large parts of Asia and Africa forged over centuries of interaction, trade and migrations, seen in traditional and contemporary musical and associated performance practices. 

The sessions consisting of talks, lecture-demonstrations and performances, will engage with conceptual frameworks for understanding connections, comparing ‘classical’ traditions, reflecting on drumming traditions, methodologies of research unto the musics of specific communities, etc. Speakers and performers from India, South Africa, Tanzania, Spain and Britain will participate in the colloquium.

(Organised by the IIC-International Research Division; Recentring Afro-Asia Project, University of Cape Town; and Ambedkar University, Delhi)

https://iicdelhi.in/sites/default/files/2021-09/Final%20Final_AfroAsian…

Registration link for 16th September 2021 2:00 pm, India Time (Mumbai, GMT+05:30)
 

Click here for Registration

Concept Note

The colloquium, ‘Afro-Asian Musical Imaginaries: Interconnected Histories across Continents’ organized by the International Research Division, IIC, will trace the musical connections that large parts of Asia and Africa forged over centuries of interaction, trade and migrations, seen in traditional and contemporary musical and associated performance practices. These connections are seen also in the Indian subcontinent, through north-western routes into west Asia and extending into north and west Africa, carrying the lineages of Silk Road and Indian Ocean World interactions. 
These interactions developed over centuries—and in fact, millennia—have impacted how societies are structured and how social life and sociality are organised in different parts of Africa and Asia. Various communities across these regions and their contemporary ritual, musical and performance practices can be seen to reflect these longue dureé connections. However, a lot of this history, as well as how it gets reflected in how people live their lives in the modern period, is not commonly known. A substantial body of research, as well as performance practice, has been reflecting on this, and has brought to the fore interesting interdisciplinary ways to understand these interconnected histories.
Music and musical traditions in different parts of Afro-Asia bear the imprint of this interaction. The colloquium will reflect strands of current research on musical traditions of medieval Afro-Asia that allows us a glimpse into contemporary practices. 
Sessions, consisting of talks, lecture-demonstrations and performances, will engage with conceptual frameworks for understanding connections, comparing ‘classical’ traditions, reflecting on drumming traditions, methodologies of research into the musics of specific communities, etc. Speakers and performers will be from India, South Africa, Tanzania and Spain.      

Forgotten Kashmir: The Other side of the Line of Control 
By Dinkar Srivastava (HarperCollins India, New Delhi: 2021)

Discussants: Prof. Ishtiaq Ahmed, Swedish political scientist and author of Pakistani descent, Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University; Amb. Satish Chandra, former Permanent Representative to the United Nations in Geneva and former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan; Amb. Dinkar P. Srivastava, former Indian Ambassador to Iran and author of the book

Chair: Amb. Satinder K. Lambah, former Special Envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, former Indian High Commissioner to Pakistan and Ambassador to Russia

Readings from the eminent Hindi poet, Kunwar Narain’s poems and excerpts from 12 original collections by 21 translators in 15 different languages organized by The University of Lausanne, Switzerland as part of the programme Remembering Kunwar Narain. 

Readings by Alessandra Consolaro (Italian); Alok Bhalla (English); Anastasia Guria (Russian); Annie Montaut (French); Apurva Narain (English); Danuta Stasik (Polish); Guzel Strelkova (Russian); Heinz Werner Wessler (German); John Vater (English); Margus Lattik (Estonian);
Milena Bratoeva (Bulgarian); Nicola Pozza (French); Nicolas Boin Principato (French); Padma Patil (Marathi); Péter Sági (Hungarian); Prayag Saikia (Assamese); Premlata Verma (Spanish); Ramanik Agravat (Gujarati); Renata Czekalska (Polish); Santosh Alex (Malayalam); and Tomoko Kikuchi (Japanese)

(Collaboration: Rajkamal Prakashan Samuh; and The University of Lausanne, Switzerland)

The Tin Drum (Die blechtrommel/Germany) | ( Click here to watch )
(142 min; 1979; German with English subtitles)
Director: Volker Schlöndorff

Multiple award winner including Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film, Academy Awards, USA 1980; Palme d’Or, Cannes Film Festival 1979; Challenge Award ‘Golden Bowl’ for Outstanding Feature Film, German Film Awards 1979; among others

Oskar is born in Germany in 1924 with an advanced intellect. Repulsed by the hypocrisy of adults and the irresponsibility of society, he refuses to grow older after his third birthday. While the chaotic world around him careers toward the madness and folly of World War II, Oskar pounds incessantly on his beloved tin drum and perfects his uncannily piercing shrieks. The Tin Drum is Volker Schlöndorff’s visionary adaptation of Nobel laureate Günter Grass’s acclaimed novel, characterized by surreal imagery, arresting eroticism, and clear-eyed satire.

A two-part BBC 4 programme presented by Dr. Adam Rutherford, British geneticist, author, and broadcaster. 

Dr Adam Rutherford takes viewers on a rollercoaster ride as he explores the consequences of one of the biggest scientific projects of all time - the decoding of the entire human genome in 2000. In 2001 scientists announced that humanity had read every single piece of information which makes up the human genome, the code within our DNA. It was a pivotal moment in scientific history.

The Gene Code 2:

Unlocking the Code | ( Click here to watch ) | (58:36 min; 2011; English)
In programme 2, ‘Unlocking the Code’, we learn how decoding the genome has led us to begin to understand the very process by which our DNA makes us different; how it makes each one of us on earth unique, how it influences who we are and the traits we have. It reveals how the biggest ever scientific project of all time has made us realise how amazing and complex we really are.

By Sudip Kumar Ghosh from Tripura, disciple of Guru Th. Chourjeet Singh, Guru Th. Bimola Devi and Guru N. Amusana Devi

Accompanists: Guru Th. Chourjeet Singh (pung); Sanahambi Devi (vocal); and Megachandra (flute)

Alain Badiou – Contemporary Art Confronting the 21st Century
(94 min; 2015; English)

Video recording of a talk delivered by the well-known French philosopher Alain Badiou organised by 
Miguel Abreu Gallery, New York on 7th February 2015. 

Tracing the history and evolution of the arts in the twentieth century, Alain Badiou addresses the new conditions posed by the twenty-first century which he says is facing technical challenges comparable only to the invention of the printing press, or to the emergence of oil painting: the ability to digitize, including basic creative gestures, affords a sort of independence to the term “art" from the notion of “craft." Artistic contexts of a semi-industrial type have appeared, and moreover, the systematic occupation by artists in the West of wastelands left by deindustrialization has become a major symbol of the period: creation nowadays takes place in old automobile factories and workshops, in outdated giant cold storage warehouses, in the huge debris of assembly line labour, in sawdust, tar, and gasoline. What will come out of this? Let us make a few assumptions..."
— Alain Badiou

Directed by Feisal Alkazi
Play reading in Hindi presented by Ruchika Theatre Group with Gruleen, Sachin, Smita and Qaisar

Nirmal Verma’s tender tale of an affair in and around Connaught place in the 80s