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 15th 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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Sir/Madam
Have a nice day!
How can I get the book मुझ पर भरोसा रखना?
I am looking forward your reply very soon.
Thanking you
Your faithfully,
SherSingh Maths Teacher
Salempur Kalan Via-Ballabhgarh
Dist-Bharatpur Rajasthan-321409 M-9460738368