China and Regional Studies Webinar Series: Cultural Collaborations between India and China
Centre for Inter-Asian Research and Lingnan University are jointly organising a China and Regional Studies Webinar Series in 2022. The series taps into the topical nature of China and India relations and the experiences of the two countries in key areas that can be fruitfully compared. The webinar series is designed to disseminate and explore the intellectual potential of research fields for future collaboration. The topics include youth aspirations, urban development, cultural practice, and the political economy of gender.
Cultural Collaborations between India and China
Date: 7 March 2022, Monday
Time: 1:30 PM - 3:00 PM
Online Registration: https://lingnan.asia.qualtrics.com/jfe/form/SV_207p2vA8B8d2SOO
Speakers
Professor Tejaswini Niranjana
Director, Centre for Inter-Asian Research, Ahmedabad University
The Saath-Saath Music Project: What happens when Indian and Chinese musicians meet? By ‘Indian’ and ‘Chinese’ I’m referring to performative idioms coming from certain geographical locations and embedded in specific social-cultural-political histories. Are they able to overcome the lack of shared languages? Can they communicate through voice and melody, and if so, what is communicated? Do they simply perform ‘their own music’ side by side with each other, or can they actually create new music together? Can the tensions involved in the interaction be resolved, or do they have to be held in balance? Taking the case of the Saath-Saath project which I curated across India, Hong Kong, and Mainland China, I will attempt to answer some of the questions posed here. This is an instance of practice-based research where the research problems are shaped by the practice and eventually make their way back to the practice. The talk will be accompanied by video clips and music.
Professor Ip Kim Ho
Head of Wong Bing Lai Music and Performing Arts Unit, Professor of Practice, Lingnan University
A Hongkonger in Bangalore (Part II) - on the freedom of improvisation and intercultural practices
In 2019 Ip was invited to join the Saath-Saath collaboration in India. One of the key musical explorations in Bangalore was to apply his Chinese yangqin playing techniques onto the Indian santoor to play improvised music. The talk is a continuation of a series to discuss about the destabilising of dualistic polarised concepts between rules and freedom in improvisation.
