19/04/2015
CAFE DES ARTS PRESENTS
DOCUMENTARY AND CONFERENCE with FRANCK BERNEDE
THURSDAY APRIL 23 AT 7 PM
GANDHARVA VIDYA
Musical Strategies in the Context of a Healing Performance
(Uttaranchal-Himalayas, India)
By
Franck Bernède
At the crossroads of religious anthropology and ethnomusicology, this lecture is concerned with the phenomenon of trance rituals in the Central Indian Himalayas. It deals with the gharau-ka jāgar, a domestic spirit possession ceremony led by bards of the untouchable caste in Kumaon in the Indian state of Uttaranchal. Accompanied by audiovisual media, this presentation will focus on the performative aspects of the ritual and its religious context. In contrast with other forms of possession in the Himalayas, where processes of depersonalization of the medium appear often to be spontaneous, music and dance in the jāgar ceremony, rather than being mere ornaments, appear as constitutive elements of the ritual itself. Here the musical discourse is involved both in the activation and the resolution of the chaos of existence. Creators and regulators of a subjective time, musicians and dancers transport their audience into mythical time. In a context in which music is inseparable from its symbolic representations, this exploration will highlight how its technical elements interact, directly or indirectly, with the activity of mediums, living icons of the ritual.
Franck Bernède is both a cellist and an ethnomusicologist. In addition to an active career as a performer, Dr. Bernède is specialized in the field of music and religions of Himalayan regions. His special research focus for over thirty years has been the Bardic traditions of the central Himalayas (West-Nepal and Uttaranchal-India) as well as in Kathmandu Valley, particularly music and dances of the Newar, the indigenous population of Nepal. He earned his PhD in Social anthropology and ethnomusicology at the Ecole des Hautes Etudes en Sciences Sociales of Paris with a thesis on “The jāgar in Kumaon. Music, dance and Spirit possession rituals in the Central Himalayas.” Since 1993, Franck Bernède is an associate member of the UPR 299 of CNRS (French Laboratory of Himalayan studies) and the French Society for Ethnomusicology. His previous affiliations include Yale University, Heidelberg University, Chinese Culture University (Taipei, Taiwan), Aix en Provence University, National Institute for Oriental Languages and Civilizations (Paris). He is presently coordinator of the Singhini Anusandhan Kendra, a Kathmandu based Research Centre dedicated to the field of Himalayan studies
