Jaipur 2 February : Set to take place between 5-14 March , the Jaipur Literature Festival will return to its home pink city, Jaipur, for its 15th edition.Each year, Teamwork Arts, the producer of the iconic Festival, promotes art and world heritage with numerous innovative initiatives at theFestival. This year too, the Festival will feature various sessions highlighting many aspects of art and culture.
Performing arts legend Sohini Roychowdhury,
an exponent of Bharatanatyam, and Sharon
Lowen, a renowned dancer of Indian classical dance forms - Odissi, Manipuri, Mayurbhanj &
Seraikella Chhau - will join Manjari Sinha, acclaimed music and
dance critic, for a fascinating conversation on Sringara, exploring the evocative and evolutionary form. The
session will examine the vast history and many interpretations of Sringara, an aesthetic peak, often
consideredthe mother of all nine rasas
in Indian dance.
Intriguing and spirited theatre personality Dolly
Thakore, whoseautobiography breaks all barriers,has described her life with
searing honesty. Co-written with Arghya Lahiri, who carries twenty years
of theatre experience, Regrets, None
is humorous, witty and candid as it discusses the glitz and glamour of Dolly’s
eventful life. Feminist, publisher and author Ritu Menon’s biography of
the remarkable actor and dancer Zohra Sehgal, who lived a full life until the
age of 90, is uniquely structured in theatrical style. Menon puts into context
how the creativity of dancer Uday Shankar and actor Prithviraj Kapoor impacted
Sehgal. In conversation with Festival Producer and Managing Director of
Teamwork Arts, Sanjoy K. Roy, Thakore, Menon and Lahiri will discuss the
essence of theatre, its genius, its magic, and its pervading misogyny. Roy will
also be in conversation with much-loved Indian singer and musician Remo
Fernandes at a session exploring his pursuit of his greatest loves: music,
art, writing and his homeland, Goa.
B.N. Goswamy, one of the most eminent art historians of our times, opens a window to a wide range of subjects: all on or around the arts, which have immense potential to form aesthetic sensibility. From Ananda Coomaraswamy to the Art of Calligraphy, The Meaning of Silence to Farid-ud-din Attar’s great Sufi parable of the Conference of the Birds, among others, Goswamy invites readers to enterinto the field of the arts and savour its pleasures. In an engaging and comprehensive session with Jaipur Literature Festival Co-Director William Dalrymple,
Mr Goswamy will
discuss his book Conversations which
promises to be a truly accessible primer on art in India and South Asia. At
another session titled Mughal
Portraiture: Presence and Absence, independent art historian Ursula
Weekeswill be in conversation with author and art historian Yashaswini
Chandra. Weekes' upcoming book, Mughal
Court Painting in India, follows more than a decade of her writing and
teaching on Mughal art and culture. She will discuss her latest project on how
portraits were important agents in projecting the religious, social and
political identities of the members of the Mughal court.
The
Festival will feature a session that evokes the sensual lure of the human body
as well as the essential ambiguities of its representation. Writer, commentator
and vascular surgeon Ambarish Satwik
introspects upon the distance between the naked and the nude in the anatomy of
our race, even as modern imaging technologies render us asexual and
transparent. Celebrated writer, curator, and historian Alka Pande has looked at the erotic through diverse perspectives in
her work. Her recent book Pha(bu)llus
studies the power of phallic symbolism as a key and recurring motif in
religion, culture and art. In conversation, they will discuss art and the
nature of the erotic, as well as the anti-nude, in the context of the sensuous,
the mortal, the philosophical and the spiritual.
Writer,
screenwriter and activist Farrukh Dhondy
boasts of as many scintillating life experiences as professional accolades.
From bearing witness to pre-Independent India, the Partition and many a social
movementto meeting a roster of eclectic and even murderous celebrities, Dhondy’s
life is a cinematic rollercoaster. In conversation with film and theatre
director Arghya Lahiri, Dhondy will
discusshis life as a writer.
The
Festival will offer a spectacularHeritage Event and the Jaipur Music Stage will
run parallel to the main Festival as always.
Like every year, the winner of the annual Ojas Art Award will also be
announced.