When the Gods begin to dance in Angkor - Architecture for the Dancing God: Hall with Dancers in the Jayavarman VII Temples (65 min)
Speaker: Dr. Swati Chemburkar
Chair: Shri B.M. Pande

The spiritual power of dance in Cambodia has been valued since pre-Angkorian times, and plentiful images of dance and music in the bas-reliefs of the great monuments of Angkor suggest that this tradition was markedly enhanced in the reign of Jayavarman VII, as a contemporary Chinese report attests. Focusing on the ‘halls with dancers’, a distinct architectural feature of Jayavarman VII’s temples, the lecture explores the link between the architecture, associated inscriptions, dance and music rituals evolving in Angkor and contemporary Chola temples that housed several mandapas. The lecture argues that the architecture of the halls with dancers worked in tandem with ritual practices to provide a symbolic and possibly actual space for encountering divine

Webcast recording of the programme held on 20th April 2017

Organised in collaboration with Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, four plays of Pippo Delbono, well-known Italian theatre actor and director will be streamed through Vimeo links. Presented by the Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Italy, each of the plays feature leading actors from theatres in Modena, Cesena, Vignola and Castelfranco Emilia.

The four plays will be presented over the next four weeks and can be accessed through the Vimeo link pasted below. The plays are in Italian with English subtitles

After the Battle (Dopo la battaglia/ 110 min)
Written and Directed by Pippo Delbono

An interdisciplinary work combining theatre, music and dance, and forging new territory in the career of prize-winning Italian writer, actor, and director Pippo Delbono. Delbono stretches the boundaries of his theatrical language and deepens his investigation of the relationship between body and text, action and sound.

Delbono draws his inspiration from encounters with social outcasts. Stemming from his firm belief that people on the margins can understand the truth better than “normative” people, he incorporates these performers in his theatre groups and works, weaving a subtle and unique human fabric. In this theatrical event, Delbono’s theatre group mixes up a brew of irony, provocation, and tenderness, peppered with music, dance, and poetic texts.


https://vimeo.com/408035067

Organised in collaboration with Cervantes Institute, New Delhi

Fifth film in the online series presenting five exceptional films from Spain, created between 1973–1997. Each of the films has received awards at the most prestigious international festivals and are emblematic of the collective memory, continuing to connect with contemporary viewers, offering them a much richer and more complex imagination.

Screenings will be held every Friday in July 2020 from 11:30 pm onwards. Vimeo links of the films will be made accessible for a period of 48 hours

On Friday, 31st July 2020 from 11:30 pm onwards
The Heifer (La vanquilla)
(122 min; 1985; Spanish with English subtitles)
Director: Luis Garcia Berlanga

Recipient of the ASECAN Award for Best Spanish Film, ASECAN Award 1986

Written and directed by Luis Garcia Berlanga, it was the first comedy made about the Spanish Civil War and the highest-grossing Spanish film in Spain at the time surpassing The Holy Innocents (Los santos inocentes).

Set in 1938 during the Spanish Civil War when a group of Republican soldiers sneak into a village in enemy territory to steal a bull with plans of butchering it to feed themselves. Fate and the bull itself, however, have other plans. One of the surreptitious bull-snatchers knows the village well -- he grew up there, but that advantage alone cannot guarantee their success, as it turns out. The group of five would-be thieves dress themselves in uniforms of the Nationalist troops in an attempt to dissimulate their true identity. But instead of a neat getaway with a bull in tow, they are caught up in the "correo" or running of the bull, they get involved in a religious procession, and in the end, watch as the bull breaks out of a flimsy ring in a bullfight and heads for the hills. Still hungry, the group of men now have to worry about getting back to their own battalion before they are found out

https://cultura.cervantes.es/nuevadelhi/en/the-heifer/134829

On 24th July 2020 at 4 pm

Music Appreciation Promotion
A Half-Century of Woodstock Festival
Illustrated lecture by Paranjoy Guha-Thakurta, journalist, author, educationist, documentary filmmaker and publisher

Moderator: Prithviswar Sen, amateur guitarist

What made a music festival held in a farm in upstate New York on 15th August 1969 unique? And why does it still resonate among many fifty years later? The answer lies in the manner in which it fused and mixed music and politics
 

Speaker: Professor Shahid Amin, former Professor of History, University of Delhi

Chair: Professor Bijoy H. Boruah, Professor of Philosophy in the Department of Humanities and Social Sciences of IIT Delhi

The talk is based on Prof. Amin’s book Conquest and Community: The Afterlife of Warrior Saint Ghazi Miyan

Collaboration: Orient Blackswan

Webcast recording of the programme held on 11th January 2016

Speaker: Justice S.H. Kapadia, Chief Justice of India

Welcome & Introduction: Shri Soli Sorabjee, President, IIC

Chair: Prof. M.G.K. Menon, Life Trustee, IIC

Webcast recording of the programme held on 25th August 2012

Screening of a documentary film followed by a discussion

Film: Nodir Kul Nai (17:11 min; 2019; with English subtitles)
Director: Parasher Baruah

The film will be introduced by Kishalay Bhattacharjee
Screening will be followed by a discussion with Parasher Baruah on some of the issues raised in the film

The short documentary produced by ArtEast, features singers, boatmen and everyday life on the Chars or numerous sand banks that dot the red river, the Brahmaputra. The river does not know boundaries, it just flows. In the film, through songs and poetry, the miyahs who inhabit the chars explore their relationship with the river, their struggle for survival and the larger issue of migration and identity. They are as much outsider as water is to land

Organised in collaboration with Italian Embassy Cultural Centre, four plays of Pippo Delbono, well-known Italian theatre actor and director will be streamed through Vimeo links. Presented by the Emilia Romagna Teatro Fondazione, Italy, each of the plays feature leading actors from theatres in Modena, Cesena, Vignola and Castelfranco Emilia.

The four plays will be presented over the next four weeks and can be accessed through the Vimeo link pasted below. The plays are in Italian with English subtitles

This Fierce darkness (Questo buio feroce; 110 min)
Written and Directed by Pippo Delbono

Composed of text (Italian and English), music, dance and a remarkable display of visuals, the non-linear show explores the relationship between life and death and the impressions, conscious and unconscious, that fly through our thoughts.

Set in a large white box designed by Claude Santerre and strikingly lit by Robert John Resteghini, the 14 actors, stepping into the production on opening day to replace an ailing company member – play out Delbono’s carnival-like vision. The cast includes a number of non-professional actors, among them street people and others who, for various reasons, some would consider social outsiders
 
https://vimeo.com/407985900

Organised in collaboration with Cervantes Institute, New Delhi

Fourth film in the online series presenting five exceptional films from Spain, created between 1973–1997. Each of the films has received awards at the most prestigious international festivals and are emblematic of the collective memory, continuing to connect with contemporary viewers, offering them a much richer and more complex imagination.

Screenings will be held every Friday in July 2020 from 11:30 pm onwards. Vimeo links of the films will be made accessible for a period of 48 hours

Friday, 24th July 2020 from 11:30 pm onwards
The Lucky Star (La Buena estrella)
(102 min; 1997; Spanish with English subtitles)
Director: Ricardo Franco

Multiple award winner including Prize of the Ecumenical Jury- Special Mention, Cannes Film Festival 1997; Goya Awards for Best Director, Best Lead Actor, Best Original Screenplay & Best Film, Goya Awards 1998; CEC Awards for Best Actor, Best Actress & Best Score, Cinema Writers Circle Awards, Spain 1998; among others

After making his daily purchases at the slaughterhouse, Rafael, a butcher, witnesses Marina - a woman with a glass eye - being attacked on the street by Daniel; her long-time acquaintance since the orphanage, where they were both raised as children. He rescues her from Daniel and brings her to his home, where soon a relationship develops between them. Rafael and Marina settle down together as a couple. However, Daniel is released from prison and comes back in search of Marina…

https://cultura.cervantes.es/nuevadelhi/en/the-good-star/134828

Speaker: Shri Gopalkrishna Gandhi, Former Indian High Commissioner to South Africa and former Governor of West Bengal 

Welcome remarks: Suhas Borker, Convener, Working Group on Alternative Strategies

Closing remarks: H.E. Mr. Joel Sibusiso Ndebele, South African High Commissioner to India

Chair: Shri N.N. Vohra, President, IIC

(Collaboration: Working Group on Alternative Strategies; and South African High Commission)