Events

SACHI and the Asian Art Museum present an evening of courtly splendor:

$75 per person, prority seating SOLD OUT
$50 per person, priority seating
Limited priority seating includes museum admission and Maharaja exhibition viewing.
Rsvp, kalpana@sachi.org; 650.349.1247

$20 per person, open seating, Asian Art Museum non-members
$10 per person, open seating, Asian Art Museum members
General seating may be purchased online. For tickets, please click Asian Art Museum.
For information contact publicprograms@asianart.org; tel 415.581.3660

Re-live the splendour of the Nawabs in a unique concert of Thumri & Kathak, tracing the hand in hand journey of two great art forms through time.

Listen to immortal traditional Thumris brought to life in Kathak dance expression, re-creating the glory that was Lucknow in the early to mid-19th century.

Thumri, a light vocal classical music genre in North India, popularly ascribed to the 19th century court of Nawab Wajid Ali Shah of Lucknow, arose as a song accompaniment to Kathak dance. Kathak, one of the 8 major classical dance forms of India, is the art of storytelling in dance. It originated as religious storytelling in the temples of India and later gained prominence in the princely courts in mid-19th century.

A program depicting the close interaction between the two art forms, Thumri and Kathak, presented by artists Dhanashree Pandit Rai and Keka Sinha will evoke the court ambience of 19th and early 20th century India in a fully choreographed performance of dance, music, and storytelling.

About the Artists:
Dhanashree Pandit Rai is one of the leading exponents of the Thumri form of music. A graduate of Hindustani Classical Music from the University of Bombay, and visiting faculty at S.N.D.T. University, Mumbai, she trained under the stalwart of the Kirana gharana, Firoz Dastur and Thumri legend Shobha Gurtu. A recipient of several distinguished awards, she has performed extensively in India and abroad, conducting workshops and presenting concerts in Indian Classical Music. Ms. Rai has imparted training in Indian music to several world renowned Jazz artists.

Keka Sinha is a distinguished Kathak dancer from Mumbai, India. She is a disiple of Guru Bandana Sen and Reba Vidyarthi, direct disciples of the Late renowned Pandit Shambhu Maharaj of Lucknow gharana. Sinha is the recipient of several distinguished awards. She has performed internationally and in India at prestigious festivals and has conceptualized and choreographed many significant dance ballets. She is also a television artist, serves on the selection committee for the Centre for Cultural Resources & Training, Govt. of India, and imparts training to several aspiring dance artists.

SACHI extends special thanks and appreciation to the following sponsors: Betty & Bruce Alberts, Neaera & Ed Baer, Sheila & Ketan Kothari, Shivi Singh & Prithvi Legha, Vinati Mishra, Gita & Ashok Vaish, and Meena Vashee.

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Enjoy a day of festivities at the SACHI Annual Event at the Asian Art Museum

SACHI and the Asian Art Museum invite you to join a celebration of India
through the lens of filmmakers Ismail Merchant and James Ivory.

Hullabaloo over Georgie and Bonnie's Pictures (1978)
Run time: 85 minutes (cover image)
Victor Bannerjee plays a young Maharaja named George, while Aparna Sen portrays his sister, Bonnie. Brother and sister are the proud possessors of a priceless collection of miniature paintings, which makes them the target of every critic, appraiser, and huckster in the art world. Lady Gee (Peggy Ashcroft) is a museum curator–part of a group that descends upon a palace in India for a valuable collection of paintings. Merchant Ivory production

Autobiography of a Princess (1975)
Run time: 59 minutes
Indian princess Madhur Jaffrey divorced and living in self-enforced exile in London invites family friend James Mason to an annual tea party and persuades him to write a biography of her father. The two watch footage of Royal India, and the king's privileged lifestyle only convinces the Englishman to write about those who struggled amid poverty.
Merchant Ivory production

Merchant Ivory Film Productions:
American director James Ivory (born 1928) enjoyed a successful partnership with Indian producer Ismail Merchant, in their independent film company, Merchant Ivory Productions. James Ivory's fascination with exotic places led him to India, where he teamed up with Ismail Merchant, and German-born writer, Ruth Prawer Jhabvala. The trio's first films were set in India. Concerned with questions of cultural interplay and identity, "The trio express the difficulty of connecting through a number of metaphors: past/present, Hindu/Muslim, England/India, America/Europe, homosexual/heterosexual, man/woman", noted film critic Jeffrey Gantz. Since 1961 Ivory, Merchant, and Jhabvala collaborated on more than 20 movies and television productions in India, the US and Europe. The films of Merchant Ivory Productions have evolved into a genre of their own.

About the Speaker:
Nalini Ghuman is Associate Professor of Music and an Asian Studies scholar at Mills College. She recently inaugurated a special one of a kind course on the music of India. An authority on British music and imperialism during the Raj, Dr. Ghuman publishes and presents her research internationally, including programs on BBC Radio and essays for Western Music and Race (Cambridge University Press, 2007) and for Elgar and His World (Princeton University Press, 2007). Her most recent book is titled, Resonances of the Raj: India in the English Musical Imagination, 1897-1947. Dr. Ghuman graduated from Oxford University and King's College, London, completing her PhD at University of California, Berkeley in musicology and ethnomusicology. In 2004 she co-directed a fully staged performance of Gustav Holst's chamber opera Savitri at Mills College.

SACHI Annual Event sponsors: Louise Russell, Mary-Ann Milford-Lutzker and SOAS, University of London

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IN CONVERSATION WITH CONTEMPORARY ARTIST SANJAY PATEL

SACHI, Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India, invites Members and Friends to join an unforgettable afternoon at the Asian Art Museum with creative artist Sanjay Patel. His imagery, inspired by Maharaja: The Splendor of India's Royal Courts, enlivens the exhibition on view at the Asian Art Museum. Patel will also unveil a magical kingdom of mythic Indian characters in a show called Deities, Demons, and Dudes With 'Staches, opening Nov. 11, 2011

Saturday, November 12, 1:00 – 2:30 p.m.
Asian Art Museum, Samsung Hall, 200 Larkin Street, San Francisco
FREE with museum admission and open to the public

Join Pixar animator and storyboard artist Sanjay Patel and Qamar Adamjee, the Asian Art Museum's Associate Curator of South Asian art, for a discussion on Sanjay's artistic process and a dialogue on Indian art and culture.

You are invited to a book signing and reception with the Artist following the conversation event.
SACHI Reception, Peterson Lounge: RSVP info@sachi.org; tel. 650.918.6335.

Sanjay Patel is an animator and storyboard artist for Pixar Animation Studios. He is the author and illustrator of The Little Book of Hindu Deities and Ramayana: Divine Loophole. The latter presents a contemporary vision of the epic story, Ramayana, like no other, with more than 100 vibrant illustrations, sketches of work in progress, maps, and cast of characters–demons, gods, animals, and humans. He lives in Oakland, Ca.

Progam sponsored by the Asian Art Museum with a SACHI hosted reception.
Reception hosts Manish Kothari & Carmen Saura, and Meena Vashee.

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In celebration of the Maharaja exhibition launch
at the Asian Art Museum, San Francisco,
SACHI, Society for Art & Cultural Heritage of India,
cordially invites you to attend an illustrated presentation on Indian jewelry.

The Magic of India's Jewels
An Introduction to Mughal Jewels from Royal Households
and unique Gold Dowry and Temple Jewelry Traditions in South India

Muslim rulers in the Mughal courts introduced a new jewelry tradition in India which reflected their love of precious stones and passion for exquisite enameled works. Their use of abundant jewelry was tempered by the restrained elegance of each piece of adornment. Vast quantities of jewels stored in court treasuries were lavished on the Princes of India.

In contrast to Mughal traditions in North India, the South, including the Deccan, which escaped Mughal rule, preserved a much older tradition of gold dowry and temple jewelry. Both reinforced the storing and inheritance of vast quantities of gold passed on as family wealth and temple treasures. Jewelry pieces fashioned in pure gold and decorated with a pantheon of Hindu deities characterized women's adornment and votive pieces stored in South Indian temples.

About the speaker:
Sue Ollemans, a visiting scholar from London, specializes in Oriental works of art focusing mainly on Indian jewelry, Indian miniature paintings, and also Chinese ceramics. Her latest catalogue is titled, Indian Jewellery. She trained at the Percival David Foundation and SOAS (School of Oriental and African Studies) London University, and has been working with collectors and museum institutions around the world since 1979.

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SACHI, The Society for Art and Cultural Heritage of India
and The Center for South Asia at Stanford University
invite you to join a panel discussion and illustrated talk:

Saving the River Ganga in an Age of Pollution:
Can India's River Goddess be restored to health?

Sunday, Sep. 18, 11 a.m. – 1 p.m. Braun Hall, Chemistry Bldg Stanford campus Free Admission and Open to the Public. Q & A will follow the two presentations. For questions please email info@sachi.org or smedirat@stanford.edu

Considered the holiest–and yet most polluted, the threatened Ganga River brings a crisis. On the one hand, it is seen as a goddess that can carry away impurities, both spiritual and physical. On the other, people mindlessly continue to defile the river with human, industrial and toxic wastes. Can we assume the river is purifying if it is polluted? The condition of the river is so dire and the effects of the river’s pollution on human and environmental health considered so dangerous, that there is an urgency to address hazards posed by dangerously unsafe water quality.

The struggle to clean the river has a long history. Ironically, the powerful environmental movement was fuelled by spiritual motivation in concern for the river, revered as a Mother. The Varanasi based Sankat Mochan Foundation led by Dr. Veer Bhadra Mishra, a head priest cum hydraulic engineer, and the Friends of the Ganges, USA have been battling for over 30 years to implement scientifically researched clean water regulations, aimed at restoring the river to health.

Panel discussants Dr. Bailey Green, President, GO2 Water, an East Bay water solutions company invited to implement an innovative AIWPS technology, and Catherine Porter, Executive President, Friends of the Ganges, USA, both actively involved in the Varanasi Ganges clean up efforts, will discuss how science, technology, religion, and environmentalism intersect in an ongoing challenge to bring hope to India’s millions who look to the river as a lifeline and a source of spiritual nourishment.

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