Clear Light of the Void Program

Celebrating local dance, theatre and art in the

Dallas Arts District.

Clear Light of the Void Presented by Sangeet Millennium and Art Nomadic

October 28 – 30, 2021

DIRECTION Matt Anzak - artwork, stagecraft, script, lighting design, costumes

Amie Maciszewski - live music, story line, research, script development, video direction, project development Jeffrey Gascon Bello - project management, recorded instrumental music composition, script editing Preya Mangalat Patel - choreography, fairy costumes

CAST (IN ORDER OF APPEARANCE) Narrator - Reid Robinson The Boy who represents Humanity - Safwan Choudhury The Boatman - Osei Ovid Prince Saif - Safwan Choudhury Fairy Princess Badr - Preya Mangalat Patel Second Fairy - Kundanika Ghosh Djinn, Wrathful Deity (blue) - Anthony Otero Wrathful Deity (Red) - Mrigayu Ghosh

MUSICIANS Amie Maciszewski - sitar, arrangements Paarth Kuntawala - tabla, percussion Mrigayu Ghosh - vocals, tanpura Roshan Parajuli - bansuri (bamboo flute) Arieb Azhar - vocals, guitar (virtual, Act II, III) Ernest Ochoa - dijeridoo, singing bowls, throat singing Jennifer Brandon - gongs, sound effects

CREW Reid Robinson - recorded music broadcast Matt Anzak, Osei Ovid - video content, editing Arthur Stevens – sound engineer Vaibhav Rege, Saravana - Videography, video editing Kris Hundt - Photography Will Clark - video projection content

CLEAR LIGHT OF THE VOID Sangeet Millennium, in collaboration with Art Nomadic and other artists, offers a multidisciplinary, multi-media, multi-linguistic performance installation exploring the notion of a journey through a metaphysical world. Travel through theatrical portals focused on three distinct but related mystical South Asian traditions and enacted through live performances of music, movement, and spoken word recitation--all enhanced by an original audio-recorded soundtrack, light installations, and video projections. Guided through the language of folktales, songs, and movement, enjoy the experience of karmic cycles along the River of Life, described in “bhakti” (popular devotional) Hinduism; the Sufi (mystical Islamic) narrative of the human soul’s search for union with the divine; and “Bardo,” the

experience of the human soul during the transition between death and rebirth, as described in the Tibetan Book of the Dead. Meanwhile, get a glimpse of their relevance to current intersectional and environmental situations.

Presented as part of the AT&T Performing Arts Center’s Elevator Project Supported in part by the City of Dallas Office of Arts and Culture www.sangeetmillennium.org www.artnomadic.com www.devischool.com

Act One: Dissolution of Self The Narrator introduces the production and recites the poem “The Weaver’s Cloak” (Jhini jhini bini chadariya) by the iconoclastic 16th century South Asian poet-saint Kabir, in which he, a weaver by caste and profession, describes the finely woven cloak he is creating for the soul, which he offers up to the Divine. The musicians perform it in song form.

Portal - Last Breath The Narrator, The Boy Who Represents Humanity, The Boatman, Musicians

SCENE ONE – THE RIVER OF LIFE The Boy who represents Humanity experiences the shock of transition from one life to the next

SCENE TWO – THE JOURNEY The Boatman welcomes the Boy to the Journey on the River of Life but asks who will take him across to the other side when it’s his time. Musicians ask the same question as they perform the Bengali boatman’s song, or Bhatiyali.

Act Two: Saif-ul-Malooq The Narrator, The Boatman, Prince Saif, The Fairy Badr, The Second Fairy, The Djinn, Musicians, with special (virtual) guest Arieb Azhar

SCENE ONE – PRINCE SAIF, FAIRY BADR AND FRIEND, AND THE DJINN In the folk tale/ballad Saif-ul-Malooq, the Prince Saif travels from Persia to South Asia to find the Fairy Badr about whom he dreams, only to find her the captive of a powerful Djinn.

Prince Saif rescues the Fairy Badr from the Djinn.

INTERMISSION

SCENE TWO – KARMIC VISIONS Musicians perform the epic ballad telling the moral lessons in this story.

SCENE THREE – THE VEIL The Prince Saif and the Fairy Badr briefly unite in love, but Prince Saif finds that he cannot possess Fairy Badr’s magical, free spirit, embodied in her wings.

Act Three: As Above, So Below The Narrator, The Boatman The Boy Who Represents Humanity/Thangka artist’s son Demon in blue, Demon in red, Musicians, with special (virtual) guest Arieb Azhar There is a reprise of the Saif-ul-Malooq epic song, now in a minor key, expressing the remorse that both the Prince and the Fairy Badr feel.

Portal – Of Shadow and Light SCENE ONE – WRATHFUL DEITIES The Boy, the son of a thangka painter, is now nearing the end of his journey. He reflects on his childhood spent watching his father painting traditional thangka, art

depicting scenes of Tibetan deities, demons, and cosmic maps or mandalas.

SCENE TWO – DANCE WITH DEMONS, DELIVERANCE (PORTAL – REBIRTH) At first frightened, The Boy begins to see the demons he encounters in the Bardo as friends to play with rather than terrifying figures. All celebrate the conclusion of a long, arduous journey and the beginning of a new portal of consciousness as they dance together. One of the demons joins the musicians in a reprise of the Boatman’s Song as the other dances to it.

A reprise of The Weaver’s Cloak song by the musicians bookends the journey.

About Amie Maciszewski/Sangeet Millennium Sangeet Millennium, through the vision of Dr. Amie Maciszewski, is an initiative that celebrates diversity by presenting mainly traditional, but also new South Asian music and dance for the world—through collaborative performances, workshops, classes, and more. Amie Maciszewski is the creative thought leader, sitarist, teaching artist, and ethnomusicologist who founded Sangeet Millennium in 2002 and

runs it. Sangeet Millennium’s mission is to raise awareness of and appreciation for the non-commercial performance culture of South Asia, using their music and its co-creation with others to promote intersectional connection, concern, and respect for those whose lives and worldviews differ vastly from ours.

About Art Nomadic Art Nomadic, a collective of artists from different disciplines launched in 2019, combines elements of art, music, and design to produce collaborative, experimental multimedia events and performances, works that seek to evoke engaging reflections. They draw inspiration from three primary principles: Creativity, Spirituality, and Community.

Art Nomadic installations explore concepts of transforming intimate spaces into atmospheres of creative collaboration. Their projects aspire to elicit a state of deeper reflection, to step back from the restraints of our everyday reality, and to realize the patterns and rhythms that encompass the world around us.

About Preya Mangalat-Patel/Devi School of Dance Preya Mangalat-Patel founded Devi School of Dance in Austin, TX, with the intention of creating a passion for classical Indian dance, specifically Bharata Natyam, while instilling the inherent theoretical and practical knowledge particular

to Indian classical dance as described in the Natya Shastra, the ancient treatise on the performing arts.

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