Independent Artist, Raza Chair, India
Octobre 2015 à décembre 2015
Kumar Shahani is completing a film based on the discovery of femininity within the self through the Odissi form of dance and sculpture and the Geetgovinda. This is a sequel to his three earlier musical films, Bamboo Flute (2000), Bhavanatarana (1991-92) and Khayal Gatha (1989). His entire filmmaking career has been that of exploring the epic form.
His mentors in film are Ritwik Ghatak in India and Robert Bresson in France. His research fields are interdisciplinary with special emphasis on the arts, sustained by continuous informal exchanges with historians, neuroscientists, musicians and artists. He has been the recipient of the two most prestigious fellowships instituted in India, the Jawaharlal Nehru Fellowship (1993-95) and the Homi Bhabha (1976-78). He was given the Prince Claus Award in 1998, amongst other international awards.
Kumar Shahani has lectured, written and published extensively on film and the arts at film institutes, universities and research centres across the country and in Europe and the USA. He has conceptualized the setting up of an institute of advanced studies at Thrissur in Kerala which will span several disciplines and cultures with an emphasis on Kerala’s rich diversity of performing arts.
He will soon be nominated Emeritus Professor of the Shiv Nadar University, National Capital Region in Delhi, India
"Creation of an audio-visual synaesthesia"
The research project will concern itself with the creation of audio-visual images that are meaningful in a manner beyond that of denotative significance. In Sanskrit aesthetics this creation of meaning is named vyanjana. According to Taiwanese filmmaker HOU Hsiao-Hsien, in Chinese this is referred to as ‘indirection’. In Bressonian terms, it is in the nature of a revelatory ‘signe’. In Eisensteinian terms, it would amount to ‘overtonal montage’. Scientifically, all this leads up to synaesthesia, Rimbaud being the first to stress this in Europe. All erotic poetry from the ancient cultures is imbued with this quality. The researcher will be working with a range of texts from different cultures towards realizing these aspects in the language of film.