On May 20, 2018, for our series Voices on Art, Art This Week Productions filmed this performance by Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and Rathna Kumar at the Museum of Fine Arts, Houston. This performance was filmed in collaboration with the MFAH as part of the annual Ruth K. Shartle lecture series and in conjunction with the exhibition, Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India on view at the museum through August 19, 2018.
From the MFAH website–“Blending ekphrastic poetry, which is poetry about art, with the traditions of classical Indian dance, award-winning Houston writer Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni and renowned Indian dancer Rathna Kumar present “Poetry in Motion.” This literary dance performance is inspired by the photographs of Raghubir Singh, featured in Modernism on the Ganges and coinciding with Peacock in the Desert: The Royal Arts of Jodhpur, India. Together, the exhibitions show the kind of Indian court paintings that informed Singh’s photographic style.
Chitra Banerjee Divakaruni is the Betty and Gene McDavid Professor of Writing at the University of Houston. An activist and best-selling author, she has been published in magazines such as the Atlantic and the New Yorker, and in more than 50 anthologies, including The Best American Short Stories, O.Henry Prize Stories, and The Pushcart Prize Anthology.
Rathna Kumar is an internationally renowned danseuse, teacher, and choreographer, and the founder-director of the Anjali Center for Performing Arts. The first Indian dance school in Texas and one of the first in the United States, it was established in 1975.”
Thanks to Chitra, Rathna, and the MFAH for allowing us to film the talk.
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