The Intensity of Modern Poetry

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The Intensity of Modern Poetry

A collaborative collective encounter with modern poetry a couple of years back was a fascinating experience. It helped me touch base with poems I had read long ago. The experience was like coming home.  Poems, true gems which I hugged close to bosom helped through different stages in life. Then other poems, which had been knocking at door for a long time, I decided to let them in. Poems which had opened a window in my mind, completed a thought, untangled a knot, rattled me mad, made me cry, soothed me over or  opened unknown recesses of myself to myself.  And the rest had just taken me on a pleasure trip which never ever failed to delight me!

The journey began with proto-modernists, in the 19^th century, a period in history of great change. The Victorian Age was at its peak (1837-1901). America became embroiled in Civil War (1861-65). Darwin came out with the ‘Origin of Species’ (1859). Sigmund Freud studies on psychoanalysis opened up the playfield on human behavioral patterns.   Friedrich Nietzsche said, “God is dead!”  Art offered a richly textured, yet clear and logical introduction to Neo-classism, Romanticism, Realism, 

Impressionism, Post Impressionsm and Symbolism. "You Press the Button, We Do the Rest” was an advertising slogan coined by George Eastman, the founder of Kodak, in 1888.

 In such a tumultuous yet refreshing era lived poets like, Charles Baudelaire, Oscar Wilde, Edgar Allan Poe, Khalil  Gibran, Paul Dunbar, Henry Derozio and many others.  But here we shall have an interlude with the so called three ‘decadent poets’, who went against the fallacy of the Victorian ethos in spirit, lifestyle and poetry.

Charles Baudelaire and Oscar Wilde born half a century apart, gave birth to terms like’ flaneur’ and ‘dandy.’ Baudelaire, often branded as ‘Mama’s Boy’, led the way from struggle to intensity.  He wanted to meet life head-on in the streets, in those unexpected, unplanned encounters. He wrote poems about depraved, unpoetic aspects of urban life. Wilde on the other hand gave birth to ‘aestheticism’- ‘Art for art’s sake’. He sought beauty, sensual pleasures and edited a magazine on women ‘Lady Like’ -mirroring not only fashion and aesthetics but also what women thought and said. Their bohemian lifestyles led to scandals and in Wilde’s case, a court case on homosexuality.  Baudelaire’s collection of poems ‘Les Fleur Du Mal’ (Flowers of Evil) was banned for its sexual, erotic imagery. Yet they were sought for their wit, flamboyance and intellectual sensitivity. Their poems cut through the social hypocritical fabric of the Victorian Age. 

To a Malabar Woman

Your feet are as slender as your hands and your hips
Are broad; they'd make the fairest white woman jealous;
 To the pensive artist your body's sweet and dear;
Your wide, velvety eyes are darker than your skin

by Charles Baudelaire

Impression – Le reveillon

The sky is laced with fitful red,
The circling mists and shadows flee,
The dawn is rising from the sea,
Like a white lady from her bed.

by Oscar Wilde

Edgar Allan Poe, the macabre poet became a legend whose legacy was followed by Sherlock Holmes, Tennessee Williams and Franz Kafka.  Creator of enduring terror, he was the working writer and frequent magazine contributor, the inventor of the detective stories and the science-fiction tales. He applied himself to graphology, ciphers, cryptograms, puzzles, labyrinths and mesmerism with equal ease.  He befriended darkness finding a fecund core to dredge out poems, “Deep into that darkness peering, long I stood there, wondering, fearing, doubting, dreaming dreams no mortal ever dared to dream before.” ‘The Raven’ and ‘Bells” are fine examples of his art.

Hear the loud alarm bells-- Brazen bells!

What tale of terror, now, their turbulency tells!

In the startled ear of night

How they scream out their affright!

Too much horrified to speak,

They can only shriek, shriek,

Out of tune,

In a clamorous appealing to the mercy of the fire

Often labeled as poets of the decadent movement, the three poets in different countries ushered in an era of excess, notoriety – yes, but also ‘in-the-face attitude’ to reality. The decadent thread is, "an intense self-consciousness, a restless curiosity in research, a refinement upon refinement, a spiritual and moral perversity," said a critic, further adding that such literature was, “new and beautiful and interesting disease."

(A collective collaborative encounter with modern poetry happens at Bookworm on the second Saturday of every month 5pm–7pm) 

Syncretism in Music

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                                                       Is Fusion Music Just Noise?

Syncretism is an important part of ethnomusicology - the study of music in a cultural context. But syncretism is conceived and interpreted in different ways by musicians, cultures and various  music schools.

In dialogue with Maestro Vasco Negreiros (resident composer from Portugal for the Ketevan Music Festival), the term has a different connotation. He says, “For a composer, creating music is an ongoing process. New meanings and languages come into being as a natural process of circumstance and environment at a place. When a composer encounters new music, the engagement results in a shift, and novel compositions are created out of this interlude.”

Rudolf Ludwig, the executive director of the festival in an exchange with Tamas Bubno (musician from Budapest – Hungary) expressed his sheer delight, “That was a new sound I heard in your singing that I have never heard before.”  Maestro Santiago Lusardi Girelli expounds on this process as creating something with a unique identity and life of its own, from prevailing musical practices. He says, “The Brazilian Bossa Nova and Portuguese Fado are apt examples of such an evolution.”

Rooted in the theme ‘East Meets West’, an artistic laboratory is at play in Goa, where new symphonies are being created between acoustically varied forms of music. Boundaries of geography and history are no longer barriers to create bewildering fusion art such as when the sounds of ‘OM, Amen and Alleluia’ merged to the beat of violin, tabla and sitar in the Ketevan Cantata at old Goa, last Sunday. The evening today (19 Feb) promises another synergetic musical journey through the  colonial period in South America on routes of faith and sorrow.  Syncretic musical dialogues are being sought and sealed in the seaside town of Estado da Goa.  

 A holy syncretism of radically diverse genres of music from diverse sources has the musical audience shifting from strangeness to a zone of comfort and bliss – threshold of a new home that promises harmony.  Maestro Vasco delineates, “That feeling of being at home, when you are not at home is the quality of musical experimentation that takes the audience from zones of discomfort and the unfamiliar to feeling of ease, graduating to appreciation and acceptance”. He further adds, “A layering of known sounds with small windows of unknown noise seals the new onto the old familiar patterns, and a different music is born.” 

When Steve Reich created the piece ‘Music for 18 Musicians”, he became known for his phasing, rhythm and pulse beats in music – a path-breaking composition in the musical world. It expressed an influence of a steadfast rhythmic percussion (strong African character) and sustenance of breath and its cycle (Indian practice). These influences became clear and pronounced in his music, rendering the effect without any blatant imitation.

Another beautiful example is Rastafarianism- the music of Bob Marley. It was a blend of Ethopian-Hebrew spirituality, 19^th century Pan-African music, the Caribbean religious slave spirituality and of course the spiritual use of marijuana. Rastafarianism is a product of all the above and yet it is in a class of its own.

Similarly, when the Indian sitar maestro Ravi Shankar met George Harrison and Philip Glass, a door was opened, but the approach was from two different directions. Philip.G. was experimenting in classical concert music and George.H., with world popular music. Both had so much to take from Ravi.S. , yet each produced world music in a style of his own.

On the downside, the debate on syncretism brings us to the question – is this phenomenon leading us to a ‘forced east-west marriage’ or ‘music is noise’ platforms – a marketable world fusion musical genre? Maestro Vasco Negreiros shudders at these forced combinations – born out of a gimmickry to sell, and be commercially successful musicians. “There is a need to go deep into the basics and culture of a whole musical school, which require a profound commitment and knowledge, before it will reveal itself to you.” To be able to creatively harness it, the musician first needs to be intimate with it. Besides complete absorption and hard labour, it flows freely only when the energy and the moment is right.

Another quest involving synergetic music brings to light processes that create meeting ground for divergent music schools. Indian music is monophonic and ‘stripped of harmony’ as earlier western musicians put it. It is about melody (ragas), rhythmic cycles (talas), ornamentations (alankar) and ‘gamkas’ (traversal from one note to the other) in one scale; whereas western music is polyphonic and more so about harmony and counterpoint. “The answer lies in seeking keys which are neither major nor minor, the non gender keys”, says maestro Vasco.N.  In fact the daily ‘raiyas’ is about seeking perfection and finding those intermediary elusive tones between different sounds. Here, syncretic music then becomes meditative!

Bach and Bhakti

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Rendezvous @ Ketevan Bhakti

In 1986, Ilaiyaraaja, the carnatic musician, paid a tribute to the great musical composers Johann Sebastian Bach and Tyagaraja, considered father of carnatic music, in his fusion music album- ‘How to Name It? ’ The album had carnatic and western musical movements that were dedicated to Tyagaraja and Bach.  One of the tracks is based on ‘Preludium in E’ by Bach.  In another track two violins talk, one of which speaks Western classical and the other Indian classical!

Johann Sebastian Bach Cantatas and the devotional compositions of Tyagarajaa are rooted in bhakti. The ongoing Ketevan World Sacred Music Festival in old Goa explores the intersections between Bach’s World and Indian classical music. There is also a separate concert dedicated to the compositions of German bhakti saint Hildegard von Bingen..

My research to find interconnections between these two musical exponents led me to a study printed in the Boulder Bach Beat, which states, “The musical composers Bach and Tyagaraja belonged to different races, cultures, and language and musical traditions. Bach lived in Germany, Tyagaraja lived in Tamil Nadu (South India). Bach died in 1750, whereas Tyagaraja was born in 1767. The former’s mother tongue was German whereas that of the latter was Telugu. Bach was a Christian whereas Tyagaraja was a Hindu. The former lived in an increasingly capitalistic semi-feudal society while the latter lived in a traditional caste-based society coming under growing influence of British colonialism. The western musical tradition to which Bach belonged was polyphonic, whereas the South Indian tradition to which Tyagaraja belonged was based on ragas and taalas.”

Yet they have a commonality that transcends these differences, turning all barriers to dust. The study further states, “Their musical genius and innate spiritual sensitivities were wonderfully receptive to the spirit of bhakti. Their creations are the highest musical expressions of the spirit of bhakti of their respective countries. Bach’s duet ‘Mein Freund ist mein’ from Cantata no. 140 Wachet auf, ruft uns die Stimme (BWV 140) and Tyagaraja’s krithi Rama ‘Nannu Brovara’ (raga: Harikamboji, taala: Rupaka), along with countless other examples, prove the point.”

Studies do not doubt their spiritual cores, but it is interesting to note that their spiritual compositions were deeply influenced by religious reformation movements in their respective countries. While these bhakti movements developed separately from one another (one in Germany and the other in South India), they show striking similarities.

Bhakti movement in South India arose as a response to Brahminic Hinduism of the medieval era. Brahmins from elite classes had built fortresses around sacred texts, and only the priests could have access to them. Worship was mired in elaborate rituals and sacrifices which required money. Also the language of ceremonies was Sanskrit, which was like Greek to the common man. The hegemony of the caste system bound society into separate iron-clad compartments, and was a misinterpretation of the religious texts. Also the priests were exclusively male.

 The pioneers of the South Indian bhakti movement were the wandering poet-saints called Alvars (Vaishnavites, devotees of Vishnu and his incarnations Krishna and Rama) and Nayanars (Shivites, devotees of Shiva). It first began in Tamil Nadu in the sixth century and later spread to other states in India. It was at its peak from the 13^th to the 17^th century, and as a result, carnatic music was born in South India in the 1400s.

Similarly a bhakti movement arose in Germany in the eleventh century in response to the institutionalized medieval Roman Catholicism, headed by the pope. The priests (exclusively male) played a great role between God and man, leading prayers in Latin (language of the educated elite) and other mandatory ritualistic procedures. The fine line between political powers and the church was crossed frequently in favour of the wealthy class. The teachings of the bible had lost their essence to superficial protocols. Along came the German Reformist Martin Luther (1485-1546), who gave a great boost to the bhakti movement in Germany. Luther, who was himself a gifted poet and a musician, composed numerous congregational hymns in German, known as ‘chorales’.

More interestingly, in contrast to prevailing male dominated religious structures of their time, the pioneers of the bhakti movement in both the countries were women. The pioneer of German bhakti was a woman, Hildegard von Bingen (1098-1179), who was a Catholic nun (enjoy the Ketevan concert ‘Hildegard to Cage’ on 18^th Feb). She was followed by several other nuns. The first bhakti saint in India was Karaikkal Ammaiyar (sixth century AD).  In India, the bhakti saints also included outcastes and pariahs. The bhakts in both countries composed songs in native languages, which were then sung in congregations by common people. This enabled the Germans/Indians to express their innermost spiritual emotions in their mother tongue. They emphasized the need for man to directly experience the divine through personal efforts.

Bach and Tyagaraja were hugely influenced by the bhakti movements of their respective countries. Bach was brought up in the tradition of north German polyphonic music, which gave pride of place to the chorale. Tyagaraja was brought up in the tradition of South Indian Carnatic music. Tyagaraja, was greatly influenced by the devotional songs of saint Purandaradasa, sung by his mother since his childhood. Tyagaraja was a devotee of Rama, a ‘Ramabhakta’.

In today’s world of partisan politics and sectarian violence, world sacred music festivals become centers of research and collaboration where new meanings are sought and understood, in turn creating channels of communication. These threads hope to tie seemingly diverse cultures together and build bridges of understanding in a world that’s falling apart at its seams.

Fado

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Exploring the Fado

“These are the ideas of pseudo-intellectuals. Don’t believe them! They are plain wrong. Fado is Portuguese. Fado was born in Portugal. Fado did not come from Brazil. If it ended up in Brazil, it is because we brought it there. Fado is ours.”  An impassioned response from a workshop tracing the cultural genesis of fado has much to tell us.

The origins of Fado, widely perceived as Portugal’s ‘national song’, have been the subject of over a century of scholarly speculation and surmise. It was not until the late 1980s that scholars turned their attention to fado in a concerted fashion, attempting to dispel the poetic myths which had dominated the discourse in the past.

World Music Festivals are dismantling many myths, along with showcasing music from different parts of the world. Unearthing and presenting the common threads which tie varied musical genres together, these festivals are heavily rooted in research. The studies in Iberian music, the Flamenco, with its roots in rural Arabic, Sephardic and Spanish music has now widened to the Kalbeliya dance of the Manganiyar caste in Rajasthan.

 ‘Sacrality of Fado’ at the Ketevan World Sacred Music Festival (10^th- 19^thFeb, 2017) combines ensemble of Portuguese , North African, Sephardic, Iberian, Indian (Sonia Shirsat) and Arabic musicians . Together they will explore the origins of fado and this broken love story between God and Portugal. “It will explore the roots of fado music, its sorrows, its desire and a certain kind of exile of the idyllic times, lands and spiritual protection that has been broken somehow, sometime. All this emotion, sounds and timbres flood fado music and music of the Iberian peninsula. Fado is the fatigue of the strong soul, his contempt of God in whom he believed and who forsook him,” says Santiago Lusardi Girelli, maestro and artistic director of the festival. “The concert was conceived very much in keeping with the new wave of fado scholarship, paying particular attention to the origins and the way in which older notions have been revised according to Portuguese post-colonial theories of the ‘Brown Atlantic’ and its characteristic triangulation between Portugal, Brazil and Africa,” he adds.

The earliest poetic myth about fado states that it originated in the 1820s in Portugal. The first fado vocalists would have been sailors, the working class heroes who were driven by musical expression to ‘saudade’ – a perpetual longing, a feeling of loss and nostalgia. Sonia Shirsat’s campaign ‘Fado in the City’ last year charted  a panoramic sweep of fado’s evolution on Portuguese soil from its  early nineteenth century dissemination in Lisbon’s poor riverside neighborhoods within circles of sailors, prostitutes, criminals and drifters  to its subsequent adoption (and adaptation) by the middle and upper classes.

Over the years, fado has brought to the limelight a considerable number of poets both erudite and popular and classical and contemporary. The great Portuguese poet Fernando Pessao (1888-1935) wrote, “Fado sings saudades… Fado sung to guitar has the sound of desire...There is a song of the people. We sing fado gravely in an undefined interval. Fado, however, is neither joyous nor sad. It is an episodic interval. It shaped the Portuguese soul when it didn’t exist and it desired everything without having the power to desire it.”

Santiago states that other scholarly forays into the topic have charted a variety of musicological courses for early fado expression. Some scholars made a case for fado’s link to Arabic music. Others link fado to the rural traditions of Portugal. Still others argue that fado evolved from medieval troubadour songs that found their way from Provence to Portugal. In contrast, the most recent wave of publications which deal with fado’s early incarnation agrees on the Afro-Brazilian foundation of fado’s dance form.

 “The two-way cultural traffic, characteristic of the ‘Black Atlantic’, details the evolution of fado, first as dance form in Brazil and later as a sung form in Lisbon. In its earliest appearances in Brazil at the end of the eighteenth century, fado emerged as a fusion of older dances such as the African -derived fofa and lundu and the Iberian fandango,” states a scholarly study from Rutgers University.

The study further explains,”The lundu, a dance so similar that it was perceived by foreign travelers to be interchangeable with the fado, often featured a pair of dancers who approached one another seductively, sometimes pressing abdomens together, in what was called an ‘umbigada’,  before backing away. The alteration between approach and retreat was performed to the sounds of vocal and instrumental music structured into choruses and refrains. Fado distinguished  itself from the lundu by combining the ‘castanholado’ of the fandango with the ‘umbigadas’ of the lundu . . . amplifying the role of the song, substituting the refrains marked by clapping for the sung intermezzo . . . accompanied by the guitar. This vocal ‘intermezzo’ accompanied by guitar constituted the seeds of what would evolve into the sung fado we know today.”

The latest Brazilian music genre, ’Bossa nova’ developed and was popularized in the 1950s and 1960s, is today one of the best-known music genres abroad. The lyrical themes found in Bossa nova include women, love, longing, homesickness and nature. “When fado meets Bossa nova, it blends the romantic lyricism of Portuguese fado with the rich harmonies and rhythms of Brazilian Bossa nova,” says Santiago. The Sacrality of Fado will explore these connections and many more at the Ketevan festival.

Considering the following of fado in Goa, the concert should have much in store for the fadistas  here!

Dionysian Spirit of Circle Dance

Circle dances like dandiya celebrate inclusion, intimacy

The circle dance form, closed and yet open, signifies the unending circle of life

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Re: The circle dance form, closed and yet open, signifies the unending circle of life.

Circle dances like Dandiya celebrate inclusion, intimacy

DAILYO.IN

Back in 1993, I saw a group of women perambulate a small Shakti mandir on a beach in Okha, Gujarat. Clad in homely, printed chiffon saris, they had gathered at dusk to venerate Ma Durga, followed by a song-and-dance ritual around the temple.

As I approached them, the circle opened up to include me. I became one with the motion, moving along, part of a larger whole. That feeling of being included in a local ritual has remained with me ever since.

In Garba dances, the circle denotes the transition from life to death to rebirth, leaving only the goddess in the centre, unchanging and invincible. Photo: Reuters

This was a village fare during Navratri. Dedicated garba-dandiya raas performers make this a thrilling nine nights' extravaganza around the world. The largest Navratri festival, with elaborate and energetic choreography, is held in Richmond, Virginia. What is it about this dance form that begets such enthusiasm?

The dancers move around in circles making circular movements with their hands and feet. The circle denotes the transition from life to death to rebirth, leaving only the goddess (garba lamp - life/light in the womb) in the centre, unchanging and invincible. The circular or spiral figures of garba have similarities with other spiritual dances such as those in the Sufi culture.

Sufi whirling involves spinning in repetitive circles to attain ecstatic trance. It is uplifting and meditative at once. The dance form is part of a worship ceremony in which dervishes aim to reach the source of energy by giving up their ego and individuality.

On a similar note, Sardana, a circle dance from Catalonia, has been deeply associated with Catalan nationalism of late, and is marked by linked hands, which can be opened to any number of dancers. Small circles grow into bigger ones in no time, when danced in streets and city squares of the region.

Khigga is unique to Assyria. The intricate foot work accompanying the dance lends it vigour and jubilance which works well during weddings and festivity.

The Khigga is a circle dance popular in Assyria. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

The circle dance form, closed and yet open, signifies the unending circle of life. It is one of the oldest known dance formations, with connotations of community, equality, harmony and strength.

A circle is open to participation, where you belong and become one with others - "I am because we are". It is this quality of open invitation, inclusion and intimacy that imbues circular dancing with universal appeal. No doubt, garba-dandiya raas is creating waves on the global stage.

Imagine solo or couple dancing. Waltz, foxtrot, tango, jive are dances where a third person would never think of joining a twosome. That would amount to intrusion. They would have to find a partner to participate, and the intimacy is confined to the two of them. Formations and body language in dance culture spell out boundaries without vocalisation.

What people contribute when they dance in a circle is not just steps. It's the entire experience of joy that stems from coming together. To say that circle dances are practised worldwide would be incorrect. They part of many folk traditions, but these are centred in the Balkans, Mediterranean, Scandinavian, Middle East, South East Asia, Africa, Latin America and East Europe.

This demographic analysis is a direct reflection on the cultural makeup of the rest of the world. Dance, along with music, has always dynamically expressed the spirit and personality of every culture. Circle dances mark the cultural maps of developing countries rather than the so-called developed world. Now isn't that something to reflect upon?

Influenced by primitive art, the French modernist painter, Matisse, introduced La Ronde, a circle dance, in his famous painting The Joy of Life. The painting later evolved into another remarkable work, La Dance, a traditional dance of circling figures rooted in the Dionysian culture of antiquity, opposed by the church for its malefic links. His deep engagement with dance helped create newer perspectives of looking at folk dance forms for the western audiences.

While the five humans in the circle - bending, leaping and surging - depict the living pulsating eroticism of the world, there is a break in the circle. The hands of the front two dancers closest to the viewer are not linked. Those parted hands invite the viewer, the person standing outside the circle, to join in the dance of life.

In a dance like Foxtrot, no third person can think of joining the twosome. Photo: Wikimedia Commons

Circle dance was definitely not the norm in medieval times in the west, due to strong opposition from the Church. Yet artists from the Renaissance Period - Botticelli (Primavera- Dance of the Graces), Mantegna (Parnassus), and Pieter Bruegel (The Wedding Dance) explored the form in their paintings. Later, Henri Rousseau (Le Centenaire) and Auguste Rodin (La Ronde etching) and various other artists embraced the philosophy behind the circle dance, questioning its peripheral role in their culture.

Of late, circle dance has been introduced to communities in the western world. Garba-dandiya is just one example. People who have experienced circle dance once keep coming back to it. Diehard performers wouldn't replace it by any other dance form. If someone is going through a tough time, they hold hands and dance through that experience.

Accessibility and empathy, hallmark of circle dance, are valuable qualities, never experienced in other dances that emphasise mastery and pride in dancing to perfection. Couple competitions invigorate the feeling of excelling even more. One unit pitted against the other. On the contrary, affinity runs through a circle, a human connection which weaves threads of commonality.

Marina Beer, a circle dance proponent in the US, shares her insight: "When someone would take a wrong step and apologise, the circle would say, "There are no mistakes; only variations. We go out of our way to make newcomers and beginners feel welcome and at ease, sometimes to the detriment of the older dancers' experience. It's a delicate balance between offering dances anybody can do and including some more challenging ones that a subset of the circle loves.

And yes, the added charm of dancing bare feet is incomparable!