Navtej
Dr
Madan
Gopal
Singh
Art
Navtej Singh Johar's
Fana'a: Ranjha Revisted
Fana'a: Ranjha Revisited is a collaboration between Navtej Singh Johar and Sufi singer and composer, Madan Gopal Singh.
A dance-theater piece, it seamlessly fuses two archetypical narratives from Punjab and South India: the predominant Sufi love legend from the Punjab, Heer Ranjha, interspersed with Kutrala Kuravanji, a genre of dance-drama from Tamil Nadu in which a gypsy foretells the heroine, Vasantvalli, of her destined union with lord Siva.
Operatic in nature, Fana'a freely intermixes and juxtaposes the two texts without vocabularies - Bharatanatyam, Chhau, yoga, modern dance and physical theater, the choreographic treatment remains very contemporary.
The work - physical, sensual, spiritual - centers on Ranjha, a harbinger of continuity, who is continuously changing through his response to the land, the sound and the sensuous core of life. Fascinated by his own impermanence, Ranjha thus becomes the bard of a million masquerades, crossing cultural, spiritual, and existential spaces with ease, acquiring both impermanence and omnipresence.
Navtej Singh Johar is a Bharatanatyam exponent and a choreographer, whose work is unique in that it freely traverses between the traditional and the avant-garde.
PERFORMER : Trained in Bharatanatyam at Rukmini Arundale's, Kalakshetra, at Chennai, and with Leela Samson at the Shriram Bharatiya Kala Kendra, New Delhi, he later studied at the Department of Performance Studies, New York University. Navtej has performed at prestigious venues all over the world and has done extensive work with several prominent international companies and choreographers, including The Bill T. Jones/Arnie Zane Co., The Chandralekha Group, Leela Samson's, Peter Sparling, Yoshiko Chuma, Alan Lommasson, John Shack, Justin McCarthy, Janet Lilly, Keith Khan, Muzaffar Ali, Anna Birch and the New York City Opera. He has collaborated with composers Stephen Rush, Shubha Mudgal, as well as installation artist Sheeba Chachi; and has also acted in films by Deepa Mehta and Sabiha Sumar.
CHOREOGRAPHER: Navtej is recognized as a cutting-edge choreographer whose work is sensitive, compelling, witty and layered. His work includes solo and ensemble works. Apart from classical Bharatanatyam, it includes contemporary performance pieces, street-theatre, performance-installations, site-specific events, musicals and spectacles. A recipient of the Times of India Fellowship, 1995, and the Charles Wallace Fellowship, 1999, Navtej was the performance director of the Commonwealth Parade, for the Queen's Golden Jubilee Celebrations, at London, in June 2002.
YOGA EXPONENT: A long time student and practitioner of yoga, Navtej trained in Patanjali yoga at the Krishnamacharya Yoga Mandiram, Chennai, under the guidance of Sri T.K.V. Desikachar. A yoga teacher since 1985, Navtej's approach is fluid and adaptable as he freely merges asana, pranayama, visualization, mediation and Vedic chanting.
In 2004, Navtej started the Abhyas Trust, a non-profit organization dedicated to yoga, dance, urban design and the care of stray animals. He divides his time between the U.S.A. and India in conducting yoga and dance workshops, performances, lectures, and choreography assignments.
Madan Gopal Singh is India's leading Sufi lyricist, composer, singer and scholar. A treasure-house of Sufi poetry, he is best known for his rendition of Punjabi Sufi texts and love legends and has translated a wide range of Sufi lyrics into Punjabi, Hindustani and English.
He has toured extensively and has had the distinction of singing with the well-known Kurdish singer Shahram Nazeri, and has performed with Theo Bleckmann, percussionist David Cossin and double-bass player Gregg August, amongst others.
He teaches English literature, writes extensively on cinema and lectures on issues pertaining to cultural theory.
G. Elangovan (Carnatic Vocalist and Composer): Hailing from a family of distinguished musicians, G. Elangovan is a versatile singer and a nattuvanar (traditional dance percussionist). Trained under his late father Guru K.J. Govindarajan, Shri Shankarayanarayan and Shri T. K. Govindarao, Elangovan has accompanied leading Bharatanatyam dancers and has traveled extensively.
The Abhyas Dance Ensemble: Navtej Singh Johar set up The Abhyas Dance Ensemble in 2000. The Abhyas Ensemble is devoted to making interdisciplinary work involving dancers and musicians from varied backgrounds. It also invites experts from other creative fields - artists, designers, actors, writers and videographers - in the making of collaborative performance works.
The focus remains on making the performance work seamlessly as it draws upon plural vocabularies, making ethnocentric references and virtuosic asides of stylistic quotations specific to the form, and interweaving ostensibly disparate forms into a cohesive whole.
Apart from performance work, the Ensemble is also devoted to community outreach programmes and custom-designed assignments.
June 17, 2008
Conversation about this article
1: Bhupinder Singh Ghai (New Delhi, India), June 18, 2008, 2:32 AM.
Much as I admire him for his dancing abilities and for opting a career which is "off the beaten track", sometimes he appears without a turban on social occassions. He is, and should always be, a proud Sikh.
2: Gurdip Chana (London, England), June 18, 2008, 8:22 AM.
Well Brothers and Sisters, our turban is a proud statement of being a Sikh, but nor should it be the only means by which we are required to practically keep our hair neat and clean. If his work involves not wearing a turban, then so be it. He still has his Kesh, he still remains within Sikhi. Sikhi is for the individual, not for others or the masses to turn around and judge. Just a thought.
3: Jagdeep Singh (London, England), June 18, 2008, 8:36 AM.
Navtej Singh is wonderful. Thank goodness that he and others can achieve such heights in the field of dance and other arts, despite the negativity and judgmentalism of some people.
4: Bhupinder Singh Ghai (New Delhi, India), June 19, 2008, 1:51 AM.
I am not being judgemental here. Of course he cannot have his turban on when he is dancing ... But he should have it when he is attending social functions or when he is appearing on the cover of weekend supplement of a national daily newspaper ... I have already noted that we are nevertheless proud of his work. Butr, we need the right visiblity in the right places, that's it.
5: Prabhu Singh Khalsa (Española, New Mexico, U.S.A.), June 19, 2008, 11:50 AM.
I agree that it would be great to see his turban amongst his art. However, I have great respect for all the Sikhs who maintain their Kesh. It is a very honorable tradition which honors God as Akal Moorat.
6: Jagdeep Singh (London, England), June 25, 2008, 10:12 AM.
Bhupinder Singh ji, I will be generous and say that you perhaps just don't realise how narrow minded, intolerant and negatively judgmental the comments you made actually were. They also load a burden onto an individual of being a constant 'poster boy' for the turban when in public, a role he may not seek or aspire to. The more I read comments like this, the more I understand though, that this is a way of thinking held by a large number of Sikhs, and this weight of negativity and judgmentalism is often psychologically crippling. When Sikhs complain about stereotyping and then complain about something else when a Sikh comes along who breaks stereotypes and achieves in an artistic field, I can say for sure, there is something wrong with our attitudes to individuals who just want to follow their own path.
7: Gurjender Singh (Maryland, U.S.A.), August 06, 2008, 12:32 PM.
I am proud of Navtej Singh. He is as brave as our Air-Force and Airline Sikh Pilots, who use helmets during flying and have their turban during public. Sikhs do not have their turbans during swimming and playing sports, but they maintain their turban during public life. There is no limit for Sikhs, if they maintain their Sikhi.
8: Bandana Kaur (New York, NY, U.S.A.), November 23, 2008, 9:27 PM.
Navtej Singh's work is very admirable, and I am very inspired to see a Sardar take the bold step of being a performing artist, and a well-respected one at that. I also believe Bhupinder Singh's comments were well-intentioned, and intended to encouraging Sikhs of all stripes to represent in full garb. However, I do also believe that we, as a community, tend to marginalize people like Navtej who don't wear a dastaar "all the time", and de-emphasize from the merits of his work and understand what it's actually like to be a Sikh man in that field. I believe there is a certain danger in this approach, and I see it happen all too often to Sikhs who tread non-traditional paths. If we squash the spirit of these courageous Sikhs, then people will never know who we are until they come into the bubble that all too often defines our world. I think an alternative approach would be to invite people like Navtej Singh Johar wholeheartedly into Sikh forums and emphasize that he has an entire community behind them and their courageous work. Perhaps then he'll feel the pride and joy that radiates from that sangat and want to carry that feeling into all areas of his life. I believe that we'll benefit much more as a community if we do so.
9: Balraj Singh (India.), November 12, 2009, 12:06 PM.
Good stuff!