Discursive Body, Embodied Archive: Looking for Lalon Phokir
A lecture by Professor Sudipto Chatterjee
Professor Chatterjee’s protracted work on Lalon Phokir, as a performer-academic, is located between academic research and creativity, ethnography and mediated live performance. By means of an unconventional practice-as-research route, his work engages with the rigours of academic inquiry into the practice and philosophy of the Baul-Phokirs of Bengal who offer a message that is relevant for the rest of the world to hear. Lalon Phokir wanted to situate his “faith” as counter-institutional, but not as a counter-institution itself. He believed that Divinity dwells within every human body. The hermeneutic search for the Divine, thus, has to travel inwards through ethical introspection. Lalon’s message carries a simple significance that is important to communicate, with all its philosophic depth.
Professor Sudipto Chatterjee
Dr Sudipto Chatterjee is a performer/director/scholar/playwright from Kolkata, India. He received performance training from Ajitesh Banerjee and Romaprasad Banik in India and Richard Schechner in the USA. After his graduation with Honours in English from St Xavier's College, he joined the Eugene O'Neill Theater Centre in Waterford, Connecticut (USA), following which he did his post-graduation in Performance Studies at the Tisch School of the Arts, New York and later he received his PhD from New York University.
He has been writing numerous essays in anthologies and leading journals all over the world. He is also the receiver of the Fellowship in Interweaving Performance Cultures from Frei Universität, Berlin (Germany).
Chatterjee has directed several plays including Nuraldeen’s Lifetime (Syed Shamsul Haq) in New York and Kolkata, Girish Karnad’s Hayavadana, Badal Sircar’s Bhoma and Synge’s The Playboy of the Western World and its Bengali adaptation, Birpurus (in Kolkata) among many more in the country and abroad. One of his most noteworthy work is Man of the Heart: the Life and Times of Lalon Phokir (under the direction of Suman Mukhopadhyay), which continues to be performed till date.
In additon, he has widely taught drama, performance and a wide range of subjects like performance theory, Asian performance, American drama, British drama, postcolonial performance, performance ethnography, Shakespeare, and Brecht in important institutions in India and other parts of the world.
As an actor, he played the lead role in the film, Tope (The Bait) and acted in Urojahaj (The Flight), both by Buddhadeb Dasgupta. He has also performed in films by Ashoke Viswanathan, Joyraj Bhattacharya and Sreemoyee Bhattacharya. His work as a performer also includes acting in the BFI feature film, Darkness Visible (2018), directed by Neil Biswas. He has just been cast in Anik Dutta's upcoming film, Barunbabur Bandhu.
This programme is presented in collaboration with the Kalpanirjhar Foundation and the Vivada Cruises.
All are welcome.
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