In the Time of Qawwali

Quotation

«Qawwali carries within itself the memory of another city. It becomes equally ephemeral, belonging to a bygone epoch and an elsewhere place. It is the unfolding of such a memory that activates our desire for a Delhi which is not there; like the great Mughal miniaturists, these voices paint images of time with sound.»

This quote is excerpted from Anubhuti Sharma’s essay «Folds of Time: Delhi in the Memory of Qawwals». This essay is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

Project Assistance: Geetanjali Kalta
Graphics/Visual Design: Upendra Vaddadi, Neelansh Mittra
Audio Production: Abhishek Mathur
Video Production: Ammar

Biography

Anubhuti Sharma is an independent researcher and musician from Delhi. She completed her PhD in theater and performance studies from the School of Arts and Aesthetics, Jawaharlal Nehru University in 2018. She worked on the music of Kumar Gandharva and interrogated the idea of knowledge and freedom in Hindustani music in the 20th century. As a practitioner, she is keenly interested in studying different forms of music and building an innovative critical pedagogy for Hindustani music.

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Anubhuti Sharma: «Folds of Time: Delhi in the Memory of Qawwalse» (Norient)

Published on September 29, 2023

Last updated on September 29, 2023

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Tradition

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Norient City Sounds: Delhi

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Decolonizing Listening

Quotation

by Dylan Robinson

«In 1991, Susan McClary, advancing new models for feminist music analysis, noted that in considering the intersections of gender, sexuality, and music, we might reach a point of production un-knowing, where we are ‹no longer sure of what MUSIC is› (McClary 1991, 19). Decolonizing musical practice involves becoming no longer sure what LISTENING is.»

This quote is excerpted from Dylan Robinson’s book «Hungry Listening: Resonant Theory for Indigenous Sound Studies» (Minneapolis 2020, 47). It is part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

Project Assistance: Geetanjali Kalta
Graphics/Visual Design: Upendra Vaddadi, Neelansh Mittra
Audio Production: Abhishek Mathur
Video Production: Ammar

Biography

Dylan Robinson is a xwélmexw (Stó:lō/Skwah) artist, curator and writer. From 2015–2022, he served as the Canada Research Chair in indigenous arts at Queen’s University in Kingston, Ontario. His book, Hungry Listening (University Minnesota Press, 2020), examines Indigenous and settler colonial practices of listening, and was awarded best first book by the Native American and Indigenous Studies Association, Canadian Association for Theatre Research, and the Labriola Centre American Indian National Book Award. Follow him on his Website.

Published on September 29, 2023

Last updated on April 02, 2024

Topics

Colonialism

Listening

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Norient City Sounds: Delhi

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Chaotic Magnitude

Quotation

by Ruhail Qaisar

«Like observing the global behavior of hyperchaotic analog circuits, whether from a small perspective of its myriad micro-localities or as an entire city, the sonic circuitry rather spreads open in chaotic magnitude. This is what listening to the city often feels like – a perturbation to daily existence in the form of overstimulating spectacles, dust, smog, river foam, cockroaches, teflon, asbestos, traffic, waterlogging, and dengue singing in hyperchaotic unison.»

This quote is excerpted from the liner notes to Ruhail Qaisar’s composition «Night and Silence» as a part of the virtual exhibition «Norient City Sounds: Delhi», curated and edited by Suvani Suri.

Project Assistance: Geetanjali Kalta
Graphics/Visual Design: Upendra Vaddadi, Neelansh Mittra
Audio Production: Abhishek Mathur
Video Production: Ammar

Biography

Ruhail Qaisar is a self-taught artist from the Himalayan region of Ladakh. As a musician, he explores the confines of memory, the dry rot of intergenerational trauma, and the eerie swarms of the human unconscious, incorporating vernacular concepts, poetic gestures, and improvisational chaos. His practice serves to transmit sub-zero sound-collage excavations based on real-life events and local mythos, as developed through his recollections of growing up in the frontier villages of the Ladakh region located in the high-altitude Himalayas, drones of hauntology disgracefully disturbed with spastic tremors of post-industrial delirium and cruel power-electronics. His debut full-length Fatima is out on Danse Noire. Follow him on Instagram, Facebook, X, SoundCloud, Spotify, Bandcamp, or Youtube.

Links

Ruhail Qaisar: «Night and Silence» (Norient)

Published on September 29, 2023

Last updated on April 03, 2024

Topics

City

Listening

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Norient City Sounds: Delhi

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