08 October
2013
18:00 hrs

Auditorium
Embassy of India
Tiergartenstr. 17
10785 Berlin
Bus 200 Tiergartenstraße

Entrance possible with valid identity card or passport only.
Free admission
for a maximum of 200 guests.
Bags and eatables should not be brought inside the premises of the Embassy.

Information:
030-25 79 54 -03/ -05

Lecture,
Dance and Poetry
BHAKTI

Lecture, Dance and Poetry
BHAKTI
By Dr. Guillermo Rodriguez (lecture) and Monica de la Fuente (dance)

“Bhakti tradition and St. John of the Cross”
Dr Guillermo Rodriguez holds a doctorate degree in Philology from the University of Valladolid, Spain, and a Ph.D. from the University of Kerala with a dissertation on A.K. Ramanujan´s Poetic and Aesthetic Theory. After returning to Spain from India, he has held the post of Indian Studies Coordinator at the Centre for Asian Studies of the University of Valladolid (2000-2003) and has taught in the “Postgraduate Course on India” at the University of Valladolid. He is an expert in Indian Writing in English, Indian literary criticism and contemporary culture. As promoter of the Casa de la India (India House in Spain) founded in Valladolid in 2003 by the Government of India, The University and the City Council of Valladolid, he has been the director of this institution from its inception. In 2012 he was honoured with the Friendship Award by the Minister of External Affairs S.M. Krishna for promoting Indo-Spanish cultural relations.

"Bhakti Tradition und St. Johannes vom Kreuz"
Dr. Guillermo Rodriguez promovierte in Philologie an der Universität von Valladolid in Spanien und Philosophie an der University of Kerala. Später war er als Indian Studies Coordinator am Centre for Asian Studies der Universität von Valladolid angestellt und hat dort auch gelehrt.

Dance-theatre and poetry
A journey through the personal and universal in bhakti poetry, Saint John of the Cross and Rabindranath Tagore.
Mystic poetry in dance has been one of the main themes for Monica de la Fuente’sdance-theatre creations and collaborations with artists around the world. “The narrow path of Akka” choreographed in the year 2000 and based on the life and poetry of Akkamahadevi was her first work on bhakti and mystic poetry, where Indian dance and gesture language (mudras) were the instruments to explore the relationships between movement, words and music. From that starting point Bhakti became an on-going international project with the collaboration of diverse musicians from Israel, Iran, Singapore, Spain, and India to interpret poems from the Sufi tradition, along with Jewish, Indian and Spanish mystics. In her Bhakti solo-piece, the creation merges from an artistic laboratory of exchanges and experiences where contemporary choreographic dance-theatre performance is in dialogue with different dance techniques from India: BharataNatyam and Kathakali.
Mónica de la Fuente is a dance- theatre artist from Spain specialised in BharataNatyam and Kathakali, which she studied in India (1994 to 2000) at “Kalakshetra” in Chennai and “Kerala Kalamandalam” and “Margi” under the ICCR scholarships of the Indian Government and the Cultural Exchange Scholarship of the Spanish Government. During the last 12 years she has presented performances of classical Bharata Natyam, Kathakali and her contemporary dance theatre performances at numerous festivals in Spain, in other European countries, United States and in India. Her dance theatre company experiments with South Indian performing arts in contemporary dance theatre. Her cross cultural dance theatre productions combine thematic and technical resources from India and Spain. Her latest choreographic work is “Eka Duayam: The voice of the body”.

Tanztheater und Poesie
Eine Reise durch die persönliche und universelle Bhakti-Poesie von Johannes vom Kreuz und Rabindranath Tagore.
Mystische Poesie im Tanz war eines der wichtigsten Themen für Monica de la Fuente\'s Tanztheater- Kreationen und Kooperationen mit Künstlern aus aller Welt. "Der schmale Pfad von Akka" - im Jahr 2000 choreographiert - basiert auf Leben und der Poesie von Akkamahadevi. Es war Monica de la Funte’s erste Arbeit mit mystischer Bhakti-Poesie. Seither wurde Bhakti zu einem laufenden internationalen Projekt in Zusammenarbeit mit unterschiedlichen Musikern aus Israel, Iran, Singapur, Spanien und Indien, um Gedichte aus der Sufi-Tradition zu interpretieren.
Mónica de la Fuente ist ein Tanz-Theater-Künstler aus Spanien, spezialisiert auf die klasischen indischen Tanzformen Bharatanatyam und Kathakali. In den letzten 12 Jahren hatte sie Aufführungen bei Festivals in Spanien, in anderen europäischen Ländern, den USA und in Indien.