“He fashioned his loom
Out of earth and sky:
He plied the sun and moon simultaneously
As his twin shuttles.” ~ Kabir
Three years ago, David Ambrose, Artistic Director of Beyond the Border International Storytelling Festival and I began a quest to develop a Wales – India storytelling collaboration to be presented at our festival next year. Like all good quests, it’s had its fill of seemingly impossible tasks, a cast of kings and queens (or Maharajas and Ranis in this case), master musicians, impregnable fortresses, exquisite palaces, colourful storytellers and simple village dwellings. Along the way, we’ve come face to face with elephants, been mobbed by monkeys, besieged by set backs and near death experiences, blessed by the generosity and wisdom of total strangers, ridden strange magical carriages (namely tuk-tuks) through hair raising traffic and, like all good quests and traditional tales, there is a happy ending with treasures (cultural) and learning galore. More than anything, we have a veritable cauldron full of stories and songs to share with audiences in India, Wales and beyond.
But this isn’t the end, rather it’s the beginning of a two year partnership between Beyond the Border Festival (BtB) and Jodhpur International Folk Festival (JRIFF), kindly supported by Wales Arts International, through which we will explore Wales and Rajasthan’s traditional stories, music and poetry.
More than that, meeting as we do across a 500 year chasm between the end of noble patronage of poetry and music in Wales – which still sustains the Manganiyar and Langar artists of Rajasthan- there are conversations to be had and learning to be shared. From Wales we bring a message about the importance of holding onto the rich weft and weave of cultural tradition still alive in Rajasthan, that is now under threat from changing social structures and the fact that fewer and fewer young Manganyiars are interested in continuing the musical traditions that have been the bedrock of their forefather’s way of life. From the traditional musicians of Rajasthan we’re witnessing first hand the glories of an unbroken hereditary tradition and the skills, music, stories and poetry passed down from generation to generation, which provide Gwilym and I with a tantalising sense of what our ‘tradition’ in Wales might have looked like structurally until the unravelling of the artist – patron relationship in Wales during the reign of Elizabeth I.
Having visited JRIFF festival in previous years to research and prepare this project, I happily returned to Jodhpur last week to pull together a team of performers from Wales and India, and to prepare and present the first performance of this partnership at JRIFF festival.
Gwilym and I landed at Jodhpur on Monday afternoon last week. We were welcomed by Mana who would become our invaluable team buddy and sometimes translator, coordinator of rehearsals, cars, chai, and virtually all our needs – from the mundane to the bizarre! More about that later.
We were then whisked off to the Welcome Hotel, our base and rehearsal space for the coming few days. Ganesh, the Hindu elephant god led the way, sitting happily on our car’s dashboard, sweeping obstacles from our driver, Hansraj’s way. These included an array of holy cows, goats, dogs, family laden tuk-tuks, shepherds, pot carrying women in bright orange and pink saris and mopeds weighed down with churns full of milk – all driving or walking on either the wrong side of the road towards Jodhpur or right in the centre of it. It was great to be back in the benign chaos and colourful serindipity of this place.
On Tuesday morning we met our fellow performers for the first time. Coming together for the first time were: singer-songwriter and Welsh Medieval literature academic Gwilym Morus; Smita Bellur, an Indian classical vocalist who specialises in the field of Hindustani Classical Khyal and traditional Sufi music (Qawwali); Darra Khan, a master komaicha player and his nephew, Sawai Khan a singer and percussionist, both of the renowned Manganiyar community of desert musicians, and me.
Shyness and language difficulties were soon overcome by curiosity and wonder at each other’s culture, music and storytelling traditions. Finding a common thread amongst four languages: Welsh, English, Hindi and Marwar (the traditional language of this region of Rajasthan) as well as across our vastly different cultural backgrounds seemed a little daunting at first, but as we spoke and shared music we quickly discovered words, sentiments and story motifs common across our culture.
Thanks to a shared mother language – though Wales and India are thousands of miles apart – we share some words. Proto Indo-European from which the Celtic languages are a direct descendent, is also the parent language of Indo-Iranian which gives birth to Sandscrit from which Marwari and modern day Hindi are derived. One of these words is ‘tant’. In both Welsh and Marwari, it refers to the string of an instrument. In Welsh, we have a saying ‘taro tant’ which means that something has hit home, something resonates with us. As friendship grew over cups of chai, fragments of story translated from English to Hindi by Smita, and sweeping melodies were conjured by Darra and Gwilym, we began to resonate deeply with each other.
Instrument strings metaphorically became threads that wove loosely together into the fabric of a show. Smita introduced us to verses by Kabir the weaver Sufi poet of India, and Dare and Sawai honoured him with desert ragas that spoke his words and celebrated his wisdom. Not being short of mystical poets in Wales, Gwilym and I introduced the grandfather of them all, Taliesin. Suddenly the weave tightened as we discovered that Taliesin and Kabir shared a similar birth story motif.
We left the rehearsal room that first day as friends, excited by the prospect of what we were creating, but rather daunted by the amount of work to be done in the remaining two and a half days, before we would present the show at Jodhpur RIFF.
We’ll fill you in on our adventures and what we learned about each other’s cultures over the coming few posts as Gwilym and Smita also post here. For now, here’s a short introduction to the wonderful storyweavers and musicians joining me on his project:
GWILYM MORUS, Singer, Musician
Gwilym Morus is a musician, singer- songwriter and expert in the ancient oral, mythic and poetic traditions of Wales. Since 2005 Gwilym has released several albums of original material, which fuses the folk and classical traditions of Wales and world music. He was lead singer and percussionist for a twelve piece afro-funk outfit called Drymbago. He has also been responsible for collaborations with musicians from Palestine, including a collaborative project called ‘Gwybodaeth Amgen’ which resulted in a number of performance pieces and the album ‘O Fethlehem i Fangor’ (Dec. 2005). For further details about his albums and music, visit mwncinel.com
In 2002 Gwilym returned to University as a mature student to study Welsh literature at The School of Welsh, Bangor University. He then went on to complete a Masters and a Doctorate at the department, specialising in Medieval Welsh poetry and the Welsh bardic tradition.
For his doctorate he investigated the dramatic persona of the court bard and anthropological aspects of the Welsh bardic tradition, particularly during the Gogynfeirdd period. He has also worked as a research fellow at the Library of Congress, Washington DC, comparing the performance practices of African and American tribal cultures with those of the Welsh bards.
In 2012 he received a grant from the Welsh Arts Council to develop a research project on the performance styles and techniques of medieval bardic declamation. The project performed at Bangor University’s Voicing the Verse conference in May of that year. Details and videos of performances can be found at his music website: mwncinel.com/datgeiniaeth.
SMITA BELLUR, Singer, Musician
Smita Bellur is a versatile Indian classical vocalist who specialises in the field of Hindustani Classical Khyal and traditional Sufi music (Qawwali). She is also adept at other genres such as Ghazal/Thumri/Chaiti and other semi-classical varieties, does collaborative work with fusion rock/pop bands, playback singing for movies, retro-hits from Indian Film music. Having sung (live in concert) at more than 300 venues ranging from Classical/Sufi music festivals to Corporate events.
Smita has 3 album releases to her credit: Kaisi Madhur Shyaam – itunes/Amazon, Vachan Kirana – Lahari Audio, and Shareefara Pada – GIPA/Kalkur Audio. She is working on new musical productions and recordings of specialised Sufi music/Ragas.
She has won 3 awards for her contribution to the field of music – Rotary Vocational Excellence Award 2010, ‘Sangeeta Shri 2007’ and ‘Dr. Puttaraj Gawai Krupa Bhushana Prashasti’.
She regularly broadcasts on India’s national broadcasting network- All India Radio/Doordarshan, and from media/TV Networks and radio channels such as ETV Urdu/Kannada, Zee, Doordarshan, TV9 and Suvarna/Asianet and All India Radio/Doordarshan, FM channels such as 92.7BIG FM in addition to Twaang, Youtube, Facebook, Sound Cloud on the Internet.
She is committed to regularly working with her music to support causes like: fundraiser for Shankara Cancer Foundation, fundraiser for Rotary’s End Polio mission (through an audio CD release), songs for MNREGA propagation etc.
She has a keen interest in propagating Hindustani Classical and Sufi music through her NGO Nadanubhava Foundation® (free-to-listen live concerts of upcoming artistes); more than 80 programmes have been successfully done.
DARRA KHAN MANGANIYAR (Kamaicha)
Born in the village of Hamira (Jaisalmer district, Rajasthan), and son of Padma Shri awardee Sakar Khan, Darra learnt to play the kamancha at a very early age. Growing up in a family steeped in musical tradition, he was fortunate to be surrounded by uncles and cousins to play, practice and learn with. At age 12, he performed at the Sangeet Natak Akademi in Delhi. His first international performance was in 1999 at the Theatre du la Ville in Paris. Today, he is regarded as one of the best kamancha players in the world, having taken over performance duties from his father (who died a few years ago). Dara Khan is part of the world-touring Manganiyar Seduction, has performed with Grammy-winning artists such as Vishwa Mohan Bhatt, and has played at London’s Royal Albert Hall and Queen Elizabeth Hall, the Lincoln Center in New York, the Kennedy Center in Washington D.C., and at festivals in Europe and Australia.
About the instrument: The 17-string kamancha (or khamaycha) is a bowed instrument. Made of mango wood, its rounded resonator is covered with goat skin. Three of its strings are made using goat intestines (soaked in milk, hand stretched and cured over a period of several weeks) while the other 14 strings are steel.
SAWAI KHAN MANGANIYAR (dholak, khartal, morchabg
At 21 years of age, Sawai is a rising star among the Manganiyar community. He’s a versatile percussionist and rapidly gaining a name as a vocalist. This video provides a better introduction to Sawai than any amount of words could.
India Odyssey 