Bisakha
Sarker interviewed by Lindsey Fryer
LF: Firstly
I'd like to ask you about the nature of the lecture presentation that
you undertook with Levi Tafari, within the format of the Trace conference.
How do you feel the presentation of the piece within the conference was
affected by that environment?
BS: I would
like to respond by stressing the point that although the piece you are
referring to was set as a performance it was actually my lecture. I chose
to present mine in a dance format as others decided to deliver theirs
by using Power point.
The concluding section
of the lecture was specially created for the Trace conference. It was
a collaboration between Levi Tafari (poet), Chris Davies (musician) and
myself.
We thoroughly enjoyed
performing the piece, bouncing our energies off each other. The space
was indeed a challenge. The setting of a small conventional lecture theatre
prompted us to take some interesting choreographic decisions which we
would not have considered otherwise. We all felt that it was a successful
and worthwhile venture.
It was a radical
move to present to the delegates of an academic international conference,
a ‘lecture’ which was not a written paper but a piece of performing
arts. Some missed the point and took it for an entertainment appended
to the proceedings of the conference. However in the opinion of others
including some of the delegates from abroad, it was like a 'breath of
fresh air', 'a memorable surprise ending to a highly exciting day at the
conference'.
I am now convinced
that it was the right way to deliver the lecture. As a performing artist,
performance is my main medium of communication and sometimes within the
context of academic discussion, we artists undermine the power of our
own art-form and try to express our views through a language which is
commonly accepted for academic discourse but might not speak as sincerely
as an artistic expression.
When I was asked
to deliver the lecture I wanted to deliver it through a combination of
spoken words and movement, almost as a piece of text based dance. Dance
being a non-verbal medium, it seemed just right that it would be able
to ‘speak more clearly about the intentions I wanted to convey’.
The performers train their bodies to speak for them, to ‘express’
emotions and ideas through movements and gestures. So I was convinced
that by dancing I would be able to more directly communicate with my audience.
In a way I find it more comfortable to think of the conference delegates
as spectators rather than an audience. So when I was asked what would
be my requirements, eg slide projectors or overhead projector etc, I requested
a musician and a poet.
LF: And how
do you feel that approach engages with an academic conference audience?
BS: I feel that was very appropriate for the academic conference.
I believe in what I do – I think it was an appropriate, good approach.
It brought a breath of fresh air, it was unexpected and allowed the delegates
to relax and enjoy the lecture. What can be a better place than an arts
conference, to explore new avenues of artistic expression ?
LF: Is it
also a good opportunity to encourage a redirection in people’s thinking
in terms of how issues and ideas are presented to us and how we share
those?
BS: In this
day of technology taking over so much of our intellectual space, I am
happy that I used a performing art-form as an alternative effective means
of communication. Dance, music, poetry : relax the mind to allow the intellect
to get replenished and operate in multi-directional ways. This is not
altogether a new concept; Indian dance has been recorded in sculptures
and paintings for centuries.
LF: Do you
feel that learning through the word is privileged at the moment?
BS: The learning
process is going through a huge change due to the advent of the new technology;
learning through the visual medium is becoming more of a trend and the
language is actually changing along with that. So maybe we are at a cross-road
or a turning point, where learning through words is not as privileged
as it was in the past. Certain languages, certain idioms hold power and
are instruments of power. The language that has been established amongst
intellectuals, for example, is hardly ever questioned. People tend to
forget that the intellect is not exercised only through language, let
alone specific academic jargons.
LF: How did
the collaboration with Levi Tafari work for you within the conference?
BS: It went
well because it complemented everything both Levi and I were trying to
say through our lectures. Working with such a brilliant poet and having
the support of such beautifully played flute and tabla drums in the background
created a wonderful energy which was very exciting to respond to. The
music held together the poetry and the dance. The whole conference was
about working across cultural boundaries. Using Indian dance movements
to the rhythm of rap poetry: in my own mind I was creating a visual picture.
I choreographed my movements around the shapes, colour and the dynamics
of Levi’s body, as it was responding to his own chanting. My dance
movements and Levi’s rapping were integrated. I was using not only
my movement vocabulary to create the dance but also the contrast of our
two different physical forms. If something akin to this is not achieved,
synergy will remain just a catchy phrase. The way things are now, we have
to wait for an Indian art exhibition to take place and to call an Indian
artist to do a dance, to invite a rap poet only at an African arts event
… and so on. Things stay in their own narrow culture specific slots.
Seeing one as primarily an artist, a poet or a dancer can in some cases
challenge this separation.
LF: Are you
retaining your cultural identity within a shared practice?
BS: Yes, bearing
in mind that cultural identity is a complex concept. I see cultural identity
as a Statistical model. Part of it is constant and remains intact as something
that is held with deepest conviction. There is another part of this cultural
identity that moves with the person and it’s meaning changes as
the person goes through life, growing with experience. If I take an example
from my dance, much of the content of my dances are different from what
I had learnt I use new music often including words spoken in English but
I believe that the principles and the underlying philosophy of how I formulate
the dance is rooted in the age old convictions of the world of Indian
dance. To remain within the predetermined boundaries without responding
to any change could be restricting. One can step out of the accepted codes
of one’s identity and still retain it and carry it within the aesthetics
of one’s work. We need not be so precious about this thing called
‘identity’, thinking that if you step outside it, it will
disappear. If we are to consider the issue of ‘trace’ in a
serious way, then we have to see identity as something embedded within
that which moves with you. Sometimes, by crossing the boundaries, you
set a test for yourself to see how far out you can go while you can still
retain it.
LF: Levi was
talking about being one thing in the family home and being another thing
in school when growing up. He argued that this interchangeability he felt
was so important, that he had almost two identities. He had to manage
those growing up, particularly in certain contexts within Liverpool.
BS: It is
different for different people. I was born and brought up in India where
I was not a member of the minority community. When I'm here I am reminded
more readily of my Indian identity than when I am in India . In India
I was trained to use a kind of academic and formal English as encountered
in publications and lectures, rather than the language actually spoken
by people in their day to day communication. Also the contact that I had
in India with people from abroad was very much at that academic level.
So for me, after coming to England, it was a strange shock, I really had
to have a reorientation, and reconsider the language of appropriate communication.
I adapted and took an interest in the language of teaching. I searched
for a language: simple yet profound, a tool, which can convey complex
concepts through non-threatening words.
LF: How do
you feel that working with communities affects the way your practice is
received?
BS: Many people
are interested in how artists are increasingly working with people in
communities, although this work has very little status. Education and
community work (which is also education) is so important to keep any sanity
in this society.
Working with communities
gives me a clearer idea of how I want my work to develop, to make it relevant
for my audience. My art-form training happened in India; what I needed
to add to that was an understanding of the new audience I was bringing
my work to. My community work gave me a new insight into the directions
my work could take. Also, it has strengthened my conviction in my art-form
and helped me to identify the strong points of its practice.
LF: Do you
see this work also developing the art-form? This use of language, how
does it work combined with movement?
BS: Yes, it
does and I have taken a particular interest in developing text based narrative
dance using poetry and stories from diverse sources (including works of
Rabindranath Tagore, contemporary Bengali poet Sunil Ganguly, Canadian
poet Robert Bringhurst and the rap poet from Liverpool Levi Tafari). Usually
verbal language is used in dance as a song, whereas I am incorporating
texts as spoken words.
LF: To sum
up, there are differences in working in collaboration with other practitioners,
and the interconnection that that makes and the sharing of languages and
expressions. You, as a performer, are also sharing and engaging with an
audience. Then there's also the sharing of languages as you're physically
working with people, in terms of choreographing, performing, whether it's
other professionals, practitioners, or whether it's young people or elderly
people, or whatever.
You are very aware
of the different oral, visual and physical languages, their different
uses within a range of collaborations when working with people of different
ages and a range of cultural backgrounds. It's an incredibly complex set
of structures that you're operating within?
BS: Yes. Analysis
makes the process seem complex, but the working process cuts through that
towards resolution. The complexity (if you call it complexity) is what
keeps the work challenging and stimulating. As an artist that’s
what you need. Within a performance setting in a community, you do not
have the distance of the proscenium stage, lighting or costume –
to make a work of art stand within that set up one has to draw and find
something which is strong enough to give the work the validity.
I would add that
the range of community groups I have worked with comprises nursery children
to disabled people to old age pensioners, in hospitals, colleges, prisons,
day centres, museums and so on…
LF: How do
you see your work in education furthering the aim of making life and art
inseparable? Do you see changes? Have you seen changes? Are you hopeful?
BS: The life
and Art are inseparable. One determines the shape and the destiny of the
other. At one time I did imagine my artistic endeavor to be different
from the rest of my life. As a dance practitioner my artistic life revolved
round the world of choreographing and performing. It involved stage, set,
light, costume; in other words all that makes a performance a magical
experience for an audience. However when I was appointed as the Asian
Dance Animateur of Merseyside Arts my artistic world expanded. I started
to work in schools, colleges, day centres and old peoples homes. Suddenly
the audience became the participants. They started to intrude into my
intimate immediate space. I still had the responsibility of conjuring
up the magic, but this time without any help from the usual theatrical
aids. That is when I looked deeply into my own artistic practice. My search
began for the elements that will not loose their power when transported
from the glamorous world of theatre to apparently 'ordinary' environments
of day to day use. Gradually the notion of a new aesthetic started to
unfold. My life and my art merged into one another.
LF: Within
your collaborative practice and through education work you are encouraging
the unpractised to move through such processes?
BS: I believe
in what I do. If what one does as an artist cannot influence one's attitude
to life then it is not totally sincere. Whether it is a collaborative
venture or a community education initiative, I always try to find special
moments of meaningful engagement with what I am doing. My collaborating
partners and other participants are my fellow travelers in that journey.
After that it is up to each individual to decide how he or she may wish
to process the experience. (I met a brilliant sculptor with a very negative
attitude towards her body image. After we worked together to create a
dance for her, she changed. She said that she had realised that what makes
the difference is not the weight, but how one carries it.)
LF: We are
still teaching and learning in a very similar way to the way we were in
the last century, again with the written word having a higher status than
experiential learning. We don't seem to be able to recognise or incorporate
the complexities of different forms of intelligence into how we teach
and learn to create understanding. Do you agree?
BS: I understand
your point. This may be true in the academic circle. However I notice
some radical departures. The advent of the new technology has already
changed the method of teaching and the process of learning. Within that
the understanding of visual arts plays an important part in designing
the screen, which is of primary interface.
My own academic background
is in Statistics where communicating with written words had equal weight
with expressing ideas and information through graphs, charts and abstract
mathematical symbols.
When I consider my
current practice of providing life long education through the medium of
dance I notice a definite shift towards using 'different forms of intelligence
to create understanding'. However there is a long way to go. In the meantime,
within the academic circle the supremacy of expressing with written words
prevails.
LF: How does
working with people from different cultural identities affect the development
of your practice?
BS: Working
to communicate across the cultural boundary made a fundamental impact
in many ways on my performance work. According to Hindu tradition, the
audience is representatives of the god. Any artistic endeavor reaches
its fullness only when the artist and the audience establish a direct
channel of communication. Moving amongst different communities of Liverpool
had given me a clearer idea of how to foster that communication. Which
in its turn influenced the choice of content and its treatment. As a result
now I have a body of new work based on spoken text in English. It has
made me a more confident performer, more ready to take up new artistic
challenges.
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