Last evening the bharath nivas auditorium was witness to a spectacular Hindustani Jugalbandhi from Pandit Shivnath Mishra and his family.Pandit Shivnath Mishra was accompanied by his son Deobrat Mishra on the sitar and his grandson Prashant Mishram was on the tabla. it was a perfect harmony of three generations on one platform. The beautiful ragas left the audience enthralled. The trio presented one of pandit shivnath's composition called "ma ganga". At the close of the event they played the bhairavi . Read more

Kalki a transgender rights activist with the Sahodari Foundation, was in Auroville to present a talk about the transgender community in India. Kalki spoke about the various difficulties that they face with the government, the law and the society. Kalki who has lived in Auroville for two years questioned their acceptance by the Auroville community. Kalki presented a documentary Sowndarya about lives and acceptance of transgenders in India. Lot of concerns and questions were asked by Aurovillians which Kalki answered in depth. Read more

Hemant Chauhan is considered one of Gujarat’'s best and most widely celebrated singer of bhajans and folk music. He is frequently referred to as the bhajan king of Gujarati music, and is also considered to be one of the best singers of Sugam Sangeet. He has a huge fan base in Gujarat and abroad for his divine music and singing. It is believed that his performances of bhajans and devotional music have the ability to carry the listener into a tranquil, relaxed and serene world. Read more

Conference Room in Town Hall was almost too small last Saturday for all those who wanted to listen to a classical European piano recital. Rina brought to the children at Udavi School for the first time in their life some knowledge about European classical music, and they were all enthusiastic about it. Soon they have started to practice this music on piano, and their love, determination for the music leaded to the concert, where we were impressed by their performance. Read more

The Sufi singers Abdul Ghani, Ajah Maideen and Saburmaideen Babha Sabeer (Vocals and Rabahna percussion in the Qawwali style) from the Nagore Dargah usually perform at religious and social ceremonies at their sufi shrine in coastal Tamil Nadu. They recorded the song Ya Allah for Laya project movies and the album Nagore sessions for EarthSync. - www.youtube.com/watch?v=wXfPFxfy7ZM - www.layaproject.com - - www.earthsync.com/store-in.asp?catalogid=23 - - www.myspace.com/nagoresessions - Read more

Each group of singers brought something special something unique on the stage at the Kabir Sacred Music Festival in Kalabhumi last Saturday. Mahesha Ram group came as the most colorful with their bright orange, pink ...turbans on their heads as they belong to the Meghval community of Rajasthan in Western India. They represent a hypnotic folk style typical of the Meghvals, who are musicians not by profession but more traditional carriers of Kabir's poetry trough the oral traditions of all night jagrans and satsangs. Read more

It was already getting late when third group of Mukthiyar Ali appeared on the stage of amphitheater in Kalabhumi on the Kabir - Sacred Music Festival, but audience still in numbers cheered them loud as well. Mukhtiyar Ali coming from a small semi nomadic village with only eighty families from the Thar Desert in Rajasthan. Faimilies of this village are known as keepers and protectors of 800 years priceless Sufiana Qualam tradition, who managed to carried over the centuries not only lyrics but as well the style of the music. Read more

Kalarippayat, Mohiniyattam and Theyyam were performed by the Udayan's Masters at Sri Aurobindo Auditorium. Kalarippayat is a great and ancient physical, cultural and martial art of Kerala, which was in prevalence from time immemorial. It is primarily an art of physical culture, well developed in a most scientific way. It aims at giving a practitioner of the art, perfect control over his body balance, flexibility, stamina and speed, and perfect neuro-muscular co-ordination, an ability of the body to react instinctively to the senses. Read more

She who Unspins, performed by Ashwini Kaarthikeyan, was presented at Sri Aurobindo Auditorium, Bharat Nivas. The performance was accompanied with live music by P.T. Narendran (Nattuvangam), G. Srikanth (Vocal), B.P. Haribabu (Mridangam), Easwar Ramakrishnan (Violin), Devaraj (Flute). This performance was a repertoire of purely Bharatanatyam classical recital dance in Tamil, Sanskrit & Telugu with simultaneous projected translations in English. Read more

Parvathy Baul, so well known to Auroville audience and always warmly welcome for who she is, what she quietly yet firmly stands for, this time organized the Tantidhatri Festival. Her own journey as a Baul singer has not been one lined with roses, but the call for it was stronger for her. In her play, her songs, her mesmerizing voice and passion and energy brought to life a universal story of love. Her paintings, as part of the performance, vividly depicted the characters of Rahda and Krishna and others. Read more

This is a performance called 'Yuki' by Keiin Yoshimura from Japan. It is one of the most popular jiuta dances which tells the story about the Japanese woman Yuki who decides to become a nun in a monastery. Accompanied by traditional Japanese music (Soh Sugiura) Keiins sublime movements and her fascinating appearance impressed the audience. After her dance, the visitors were given the chance to ask questions and get to know her a little better. Programme in English and Japanese. Read more

Listen to a cross-cultural music experience by Marina and Nicolai from Bulgaria, who are spreading their instrumental and vocal music in different countries including Germany, India and Bulgaria. On Sunday evening they played in Sve-Dame, unfortunaltely facing some sound problems. After a rich Bulgarian dinner the audience listened to the tambura, other traditional instruments, and Nicolais sonorous voice. The combination of traditional folk music from Bulgaria and African or Indian music creates very unusual acoustics. Read more

Just as music crosses all boundaries, Nandita di has students of all ages learning Hindustani Vocal Music. They all came together at SAWCHU - Bharat Nivas on Wednesday, March 7, 2012, to present a Hindustani Music Concert. In this soiree, the audience experienced melodious classical Indian music on the beats of tabla accompanied by sitar, harmonium, and a whole lot joy and peace. Read more

Bala Baskar, a new secretary of Auroville Fundation is back in the town, and in today's news we feature phone interview with Srinivasmurty (financial administrative officer). Full moon, International Women's Day and a Holi, and also a Holi Tango are the key themes of the day. Women will gather at Connecting Girls at Pavilion of Tibetan Pavilion in International Zone, and Stella interviewed Jorge about Holi Tango, and we feature short excerpt in today's news; the full interview on tango will be published on our site. Read more

In context of Invocation of Bulgarian Pavilion, Nikolali Ivanov and Marina Velikova brought on the stage a breeze of "ethnologization", at Sri Aurobindo Auditorium, Bharat Nivas, in the Pavilion of Indian Culture of International Zone. With quite clear undertones of Bulgarian ethnic rhythms, it was as if the sound danced its way trough world music and jazz improvisations. Nikolai Ivanov, a composer and artist, was using keyboards , loops, tamboura, different flutes and voice, while Marina Velikova impressed us on bassoon and tampura. Read more

On Saturday 3th at Tibetan Pavillon opened the "Glagolitic Traces" Exhibition of Antonia Duende's paintings, open untill the 10th of March as part of the events for invocation of Bulgarian Pavillion. There was also a musical offering by Nikolai , Marina and Aurelio, and a poem in Bulgarian language from Narender Khatri. The paintings incorporate traces from stone inscriptions of the Glagolitic alphabet - the first Slavonic alphabet, created in the middle of the 9th century AD by St. Kostantin-Cyril the Philosopher and his brother Methodius. Read more

On Thursday 23rd at 5 pm in Cinema Paradiso - Town Hall, Anais Woin in collaboration with French Pavilion and CIRHU presented "History of ancient manuscripts". Anais is an historian, researcher at CRNS (Centre National Recerche Scientifique), specialist of the Christian Kingdom of Ethiopia during medieval and modern periods. She works with manuscript texts, most of them being consulted in the churches and monasteries of the Ethiopian highlands. Those manuscripts are still part of a living culture and much related to oral traditions. Read more

Martin Mosko is a briefly visiting landscape architect, monk and author, currently participating in the Matri Mandir Garden Design Team. At his presentation on 22 Feb 2012 at Town Hall, Martin explored the underlying principles reflected in Japanese Garden Styles that express the essence of harmony and contemplative mind. He presented images of some spell-binding gardens that he has worked on and showed how gardens can be a manifestation of and also an inspiration for balance and harmony of the mind. Read more

Classical guitar and violin recital by visiting artist Martin Pirktl on classical guitar and Ladislav on violin at Pitanga on Friday was again a special treat for music lovers. Martin started with five lute pieces from the Italian renaissance. Soft tones of renaissance were followed by energetic, and folkloric coloured piece of Atanas Ourkouzounov, contemporary Bulgarian composer. After we passed trough history with music by stops at certain ages with interesting pieces of Isaac Albeniz, Enrique Granado and Astor Piazzola. Read more

During the homage celebrated past Sunday 22th at the SAWCHU in Bharas Nivas, Gordon performed some of the compositions of Saint Tyagaraja. Every year the commemorative music festival Tyagaraja Aradhana is held at Thiruvaiyaru in Tyagaraja's honour. This is a week-long festival of music where various Carnatic musicians from all over the world get together with their veenas, violins, flutes, nagasvarams, mridangams and ghatams. Read more

In this part of India, the months December and January reverberate with musical compositions of Saint Tyagaraja, one of the Trinity of Carnatic Music. There is a belief that during this time, the main audience is the Saint himself. The musicians sing and play their compositions as their offerings and receive blessings that nourish them in their Sadhana. Read more

 

Last Friday 13th of January, the musician Jean Christophe Bonnafous from France offered an Indian Classic Flute concert in ARKA. Many guests, new comers and Aurovillians came to enjoy this music exhibition. On this opportunity Tugay Basar from Turkish join Jean Christophe with a flute solo and a shared improvisation between both musician at the end of the concert. Read more

Bahauddin Mohiuddin Dagar, who hails from the renowned Dagar family, represents the 20th Generation of the Dagar parampara of the Dagarbani school of Music. He performed at the Bharat Nivas auditorium in Auroville on December, 17th to an enthralled audience. The concert was much sought after as Dagar is a master of a rare musical instrument Rudra Veena. This style of music is part of an ancient tradition of India. Read more

Bahauddin Mohiuddin Dagar is a 40 year old renowned Rudra Veena player and son of famous north Indian musician Zia Mohiuddin Dagar. He plays with the Dagarbani style and his lineage can be traced to to eight generations, to Baba Gopal Das, who converted to Islam, and became Baba Imam Baksh in the 18th century. At the age of 12 he started training under his father. and uncle Zia Fareeduddin. He started performing at the young age of 20. More information here: swaratala.blogspot.com/2007/04/bahauddin-dagar-in-beginning-your-ustad.html Read more

At the Amethyst in Chennai tomorrow at 7pm Anu, honorary voluntary artist will launch her new book along with Krishna D. B and Partha , who we will be doing a dramatized reading of the book. Book launch is hosted by Prakriti Foundation. On Friday 9th of December we are all invited to join the Deepam Celebration at 6pm at Deepam School. Karthigai Deepam has for centuries been celebrated around full moon in November or December. On Saturday 10th will be preparations and buildup for the Christmass Fair_de_luck at the Youth Center from 9am to 5pm. Read more

That Shakespeare is far from being boring proved group of actors, mainly consisted from Aikiyam School Students, and lots of good will of volunteers all leaded by Hazel from Manchester. Short span of time they had to put play on the stage didn't stop them to do it the best they could. Dialogs were well learnt and spoken, costumes colorful and set simple but adequate to bring out the magic of the play and theater experience itself. On the premiere on Firday 2nd of December first audience were Aikiyam students enjoyed and laughed in it. Read more

On Tuesday, 25th of October 2011we’re all invited to celebrate Diwali at Bharat Nivas., after delicious common dinner at Solar Kitchen . Program starts at 7.00 pm with fireworks with all our children at the entrance of the Auditorium. Between and 7.30pm to 8.45pm we will see an Indian classical dance. Rapahel from Sri Ma is happy to announce that from next week onwards there will be a new free service for the resident of Auroville's beach communities: Auroville Tsunami Alarm Service (AVTAS). Giorgio will celebrate his 75th birthday. Read more

At Ilaignarkal Education Centre a traditional Navaratrhi Doll Show was prepared to mark the celebration of Evolution. In one of the rooms of the centre are displayed many amazing figurines and dolls from the rich spiritual Indian tradition. There are various and many practices depending on the part of India, including pujas, paryers, special food items to honour the Celebration of Evolution. Janaki guided us through, explaining different meanings and manners of the gods and godesses. Meenakshi did her usual annual special offering. Read more

Play within the play, multiple layer story about certain women's issues that are swept under the carpet for very long. Naga Mandala or "Questioning" , is the adaptation of Girish Karnad story about king cobra with magical powers. Young and naive wife of indifferent husband is growing her awareness with the help of the blind wise woman and king cobra. Story could have different turns, and different endings, all is up on who is telling the story, and yet here Rani (young wife) got her last word with the help of the excited audience. Read more

Uday Bhawalkar performed Rag Lalith in his morning concert at White Hall, Bharat Niwas. The hour-and-half long rendition enraptured the audience. He was accompanied on the Pakawaj by Pratap Awadh and on the Tanpura by Sagar and Jaisingh. Uday was born in Ujjain, Madhya Pradesh. He began training in Hindustani classical music from his elder sister. His love for the music led him to one of the most prolific figures in the ancient Dhrupad, Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagar and his elder brother, Ustad Zia Mohiuddin Dagarsahab. Read more