SEASONGRAY

ZERO POINT / SIFAR  

ZERO POINT is a Cross-Himalayan collaboration and is attempted at the CrossRoads of many Asian indigenous cultures with the continuity of shared brokenness and nightmares, mountains and monsters. In this collaborative / collective process we are engaging in a fresh form and practice of a synergic relationship & overlap among ethnic / indigenous community practices that come into the making of a form of an Inter-dependent Cinema which exists in symbiosis with processes of Community Formation.

The Project revolves around a Cinema Project realized / explored and made through collaborations among artists & performers from Traditional Mountain Arts & Crafts Practices such as the Exile Tibetan Opera, Photography, Visual Arts, Music, Architecture, Cinema and Performance practices. 

Here are some glimpses of our long and intimate encounters with Cinema as record, recollections and requiems.

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  IMAGES : RAJULA SHAH MUSIC : VIKRAMJIT BANNERJI  STORY: ARGHYA BASU CAST: SONAM GOMPU

 

 

Diary Notes 

ZERO POINT is a Trans Himalayan anthology of voyages in inner, secret worlds, where endless stories drifting over the snow deserts, settle with snow every winter. The project is unique in its being a coming together of filmmakers, artists, mask & music makers, craftspeople, photographers, performers, technicians, singers & performers from the Tibetan  Opera & other indigenous communities

It is the organic extension of all the earlier work, making essential connects via Cross border, Cross ethnic, Multidisciplinary Collaborations; brings together a core team of artists/ practitioners, traditional / modern performers, singers, musicians, composers, craftsmen, song writers, subject & technical experts in a series of extended workshops.

EXCERPT

Diary Notes 

STORY As MNEMONIC : COLLECTIVE EIDESIS MACHINE – Device for Collective Projections, the Originary light of Cinema

We were  trying  to  look  for  the  common  STORY, or if  there’s  one  at  all,  by  trying to  evolve  a  language  and  practice  that  can  help  us  develop  the  ‘universe-al image’   against the backdrop of sociocultural fault-lines and pseudo-politics eclipsing Ethnic  struggles.  We  arrived  at  Zero  Point …

 

 

ZERO POINT WORKSHOPS

https://seasongray.wordpress.com/prologue-to-zero-point

 

SUPPORTED by  INDIA FOUNDATION FOR THE ARTS

ARTS PRACTICE PROGRAMME 2015

 

PART 1 : FILM

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OF EXILES & KINGDOMS

Diary Notes

Samten, the director of TIPA, Dharamsala said as a joke: Gods are happy to see people gather & dance. But it may be a problem if the Gods are too happy!

Clouds are gathering in the sky. It is the second month of the Tibetan calendar. Thousands have gathered in Dharamsala for the Shoton or Youghurt festival to celebrate 20 years of Tibetan Opera in Exile. It’s a form of dance-drama that started with Mahasiddha Thangtong Gyalpo and seven sisters gifted in music and dance in 15^th century Tibet. Story goes that it was his fund raising programme for building iron chain bridges over turbulent rivers across Tibet, Nepal & Bhutan, some of which still survive.

But there are already too many stories haunting a people without a land to call Home. With an entire community in exile for over half a century, a film about Tibet or its Opera is difficult to conceive. Waking up every morning in the margins of a no man’s land crisscrossed by fences & sealed by political landmines, how does one hold on to the idea of Peace? Standing on this side of the Himalayas that draw the line between Tibet as Kingdom and Exile, I find myself asking the impossible question: Where is Tibet?

Film as tribute to MAHASIDDHA THANGTONG GYALPO

with the inspiration of his holiness THE XIVth DALAI LAMA

Resource persons : Penpa Tsering / Wangdu Pesur / Sonam Gompu
Collaboration : Tibetan Institute of Performing Arts / TIPA

Images: RAJULA SHAH
Sound design & mixing: SUBHADEEP SENGUPTA
Music: GANGJONG DOEGHAR  &  VIKRAMJIT BANNERJEE (TUKI)

Direction: ARGHYA BASU

Production Manager: JAMPA KHENRAB

Executive Producers: ARGHYA BASU / SONAM GOMPU

Producer: FILMS DIVISION 

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PART 2 : ETHNOMUSIC Jamming & Recordings

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CIPHER

LINK : https://soundcloud.com/search?q=seasongray

ZERO POINT is a retelling of Personal Tales & Impersonal Histories, left out of the chronicles,memoirs,reflections and expressions that link to collective Fabulae that universalize the experiences of Migration, Loss and Exile, as well as help relate with other Post Colonial exiles & Diaspora, such as those of the mainstream Bengalis, the migrant Nepalese, the indigenous Lepchas, Limbus, Bhutias and other ethnic groups of the East Himalayas. In this regard, CIPHER is an Imaginary Homeland, not back there in the past but here as a possibility to enter into exchange and collaboration that work as symbolic return / re-union of Rhythms and Resonances across the cultural faultlines raised by narrow interpretations of Ethnic Identity that turn Culture into a foreclosed struggle for survival. When one imagines the Soundscape of the proverbial SILK ROUTE it is the chorus of many music, not just over seasons and lands, but a Jazz forming over thousands of years along the endless line of Caravans that hit the stone with music. 

PARTICIPANTS: GANGJONG DOEGHAR, KALIMPONG

WORKSHOP CONDUCTED BY: ARGHYA BASU & VIRAMJIT BANERJEE

IMAGES & VIDEO DOCUMENTATION: RAJULA SHAH

RECORDING: IMAN CHAKRABORTY

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PART 3 : GRAPHIC NOVEL/ SCRAPBOOK

( WORK IN PROGRESS )

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SKYWALK

IMAGES : VIPIN / DURBANANDA / VANDITA

 

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PART 4 : WORKSHOPS/ DIALOGUES 2015

ON SITE INSTALLATION @ DHARAMSALA, H.P.  April 2015

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PARTICIPANTS: SANCHAYAN GHOSH, ARGHYA BASU, RAJULA SHAH, TAKZEN, JAMPA, SONAM GOMPU & LOCAL PARTICIPANTS

IMAGES: RAJULA SHAH/ ARGHYA BASU

RECORDING: IMAN CHAKRABORTY

 

Diary Notes

Parts, in the context of Cinema are Space, Time and Characters, we’re told. Film is a matter and practice which provides us reasons, methods and articulations. From there on it’s much like what Deleuze described the Process of an Interview is. The Interviewee runs from every question to somewhere else, not as in a Dialogue, which Deleuze himself preferred as a means of interaction. In the case of Cinema, the prevalent practices of running away are so strong, regular and pervasive that it is almost impossible to even communicate to your own team the prerogatives of a certain film you’re attempting. Clearly Cinema (a few dominant cultural strands of viewing / perceiving / interests) and Film (Language par se / Medium / Industry) here are often at cross purposes where Practice is considered.

The Narrato-Imagological Stereotypes are quite ‘given’, thanks mainly to Commerce  and Livelihood issues in a non-transparent and mostly non-tax paying Cinema Industry today that runs on Credit Cards, Box Office Games etc.

For me, these are actual issues that Cinema-Film interfaces are fraught with, have been Globally. India figures hardly anywhere consistently even on the map of serious cinema, Asia or the World regardless, arguably. Apart from obvious global political reasons the existing heroes and their journeys also trace out a sad fate and movement for the collective. Professionalism developed in the dark has this much going for it.

Interdependent Cinema is the practice that Ethno-Poetic / F(r)iction filmmaking has taught us over the years we’ve been able to give to the discipline, often fumbling and finding ways in the long and dark chambers and underbellies of the Incredible Indian Cinema Bazaar, and realized / still realizing that perhaps shared interests / community concerns are really the relevant deciders / justifiers of the Cinema that we might hope to practice in these trying Global Times.

 

THE WORKSHOP AS INTER COMMUNITY DIALOGUE @ KALIMPONG

28 Aug- 2nd September

PARTICIPANTS : Jampel Kalden Principal, ITBCI Sandip Jain, Himalayan Times Mr. Miku Foning Chyu Pandi Farm Mr. Dogah Opera Maskmaker Samdup Tsering Secretary, Gangjong Doeghar Lengden Wangdi Installation Artist Sanchayan Ghosh, Artist, Professor at Kalabhavan Bharatmuni President, Rotary club  Anmol Prasad advocate/ musician Iman Chakraborty Sound recordist & musician. 

CONCEPT, COORDINATION & IMAGES : RAJULA SHAH / ARGHYA BASU

RECORDINGS : IMAN CHAKRABORTY

 

Diary Notes

The story and form of this f(r)iction cinema dialogs with the evolution of pre-conceptions (necessary evils) to their inter-beings i.e. to how we empathize and act among ourselves. We’re writing, re-writing the narrative, framing-reframing spaces, measuring time in the form of scenes and plotlines. We’re trying to develop a Nomadic Self that can Flow across the perimeters of ‘intended and unintended differances’. Here room is created for stammers and dystopia we must experience together, as a shared purpose of Life.

THWORK AS PLAY

MONASTERY AS STUDIO

PLAYBACK / REFLECTIONS from RESOURCE ARCHIVE

Participating Musicians: Jampel Kaldhen, Samdup Tsering, Kelsang Dorjee Bhutia, Lhundup Wongdhen, Tashi Dhindu, Tenzin Dhonyoe, Chemey Dolker, Jigmed Wangchuk

Concept & Direction: ARGHA BASU

Images: RAJULA SHAH

Recording: IMAN CHAKRABORTY

 

 

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