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)
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.
