Arts Visitor Spotlight: M.K. Raina

M.K. Raina

By Armine Pillikan

M.K. Raina, an international visitor and SiCa Arts Writer/Practitioner this October, is known as one of the most prominent theatre artists throughout India and Southeast Asia. He speaks 13-14 different languages, has traveled and taught from Sri Lanka to Bangladesh, and works not only with professional performance artists, but also children who’ve had very little exposure to the arts.

Recently, his work has included revitalizing theatre and visual arts in his birthplace, the Kashmir Valley—a place that has suffered from militant terror for many years. During a presentation in the Humanities Center Board Room on October 11, he discussed his creative work in folk and experimental theatre, as well as with his goals to rehabilitate orphaned Kashmiri children and to set up educational opportunities for performers.

What are some of the struggles the Kashmiri artistic community faces?

 The country has suffered through terrorism, and there has been a ban on performance arts. These people are very poor. They don’t even have land for agriculture, much less the time and venues to put on plays, so they haven’t been able to perform for 10 to 20 years. Imagine a person who couldn’t play his instrument or paint for that long! This also affects school children’s engagement with art. Violence had reached such a point that children could not go to schools. They had become victims of this violence and it impacted their minds, their imaginations. They don’t really know what it’s like to have a normal day, to go to school, play, come home—it’s not there. But I believe that through education and culture, I can break this frozen situation.


Describe some of your work with the Kashmiri folk performance group Bhand Pather.

I’m not letting the tradition of performing arts die out under the current circumstances. Recently I helped direct and make possible three different plays: two traditional plays, and King Lear. Five thousand to ten thousand people attended the plays, sat on hills and watched the performances.


How did the group engage with Shakespeare?


King Lear was definitely a challenge, since the performers do not read or write. I had to tell them the story, and then together we discovered the subtext and interpretation of the story. I began to see that they completely understood the depth of the play. We merely adapted it to our language and traditions. When the performers compose the dialogue, they are fantastic. They made it their own King Lear. It was Shakespeare, yes, but the way they see it, the way they experience it.

In the storm scene, when King Lear realizes what he’s done, the performers felt as though Lear reached a stage where he realizes what life is all about, what the world is all about, what people are all about. They saw this as Lear taking this first step into the Sufi traditions, and so he sings a Sufi song.


Tell us about your work with Kashmiri youth.

My goal is to reclaim cultural space, to intervene through culture. So I organized a group of people: child psychologists, educators, painters, film-people, artists, creative writers, and we started helping children through the arts. We did four or five creative workshops.


How did the workshops start?

I gave them a lot of colors to paint with, but at the beginning, they painted only using one color, someone only green, another only brown. They couldn’t see the colors in front of them, even though they live in such a colorful valley! So I had to devise new exercises, new methodologies, to get them to start enjoying culture, to teach them to see color.

What did the children create as a result of these new ways of thinking?

They shared a scroll many feet long to create their paintings. It took them almost all day to paint it, and then we held it up and all the kids stood there with their eyes wide open. There were all kinds of things: peacocks, boars, and huge lions. It was a wonderful mural painting. I told them to find stories in their painting. Out of one scroll they came up with 10 different stories. We weren’t telling them anything; it was all their imagination! And then we said: now enact a play out of this. And then they started to write songs for the play. There was one girl who by the end of the program was writing poetry and then singing those poems.

Jean-Michel Frodon on the New Frontiers of Film Criticism

By Armine Pillikan

 In April, the Stanford Humanities Center welcomed Jean-Michel Frodon as its international Bliss Carnochan Visitor. Frodon is one of the most well-known film critics in the world, and surely the most notable in France.

A Man of Many Charming Hats

Born Jean-Michel Billard, Frodon chose his pseudonym (a pre-trilogy-release tribute to J.R.R Tolkien’s novel “The Lord of the Rings”) not from any particular identification with the power-hungry, hairy-footed hobbit, but, first of all to distinguish himself from his father, Pierre Billard, a prominent film critic in France, and, secondly because of his genuine love for the stories. Frodon actually possesses more of a Gandalf-esque aura, sporting a scruffy silvery beard and radiating phenomenal wisdom.

Jean-Michel Frodon

As former editor-in-chief of Cahiers du Cinema, the preeminent journal of film criticism in France, Frodon has helped define the role of film and film criticism in society. He has been a fascinating presence in the world of cinema for much of his life, starting his career as a critic for the French weekly Le Point in 1983, moving onto the leading French daily Le Monde in 1990, and then joining Cahiers du Cinema in 2003. He currently works for Slate, where he runs the film criticism blog “Projection Publique.” And like any influential public persona, he maintains an active and tasteful Twitter account.

Frodon shares his knowledge in a manner effortlessly fluid, spouting aperçus as if a fountain of cinematic references. This openness reflects his overall approach to film criticism: films, and the resulting impressions and theories, should open up a welcoming space of aesthetic and cultural appreciation for all audiences. And so long as movies continue to tell regenerative stories, evolving to reflect social transmutations cutting deep into our psyches, we will continue to watch and listen.

A Spellbinding Presence on Stanford Campus

During his stay, Jean-Michel Frodon interacted directly with students in two separate on-campus events. One of these events was an illuminating Q&A session with a class spearheading the new student-run Stanford Arts Review, where he provided a shrewd run down of dos and don’ts for online criticism. Frodon also gave a lecture at a Structured Liberal Education (SLE) event, discussing his philosophical views on film’s role in society: past, present, and future. To top it all off, Frodon taught a master class during the San Francisco International Film Festival entitled “The Critic’s Response and Responsibility.”

The Role of the Critic: Recognizing the Ethics of Aesthetics

According to Frodon, the images we see on screen change how we see the people in our lives. In every cinematic journey, a relationship builds between the viewers and the oversized people on screen, whether it’s bred of opposition or admiration, of power or submission, of sympathy or disgust. We develop our sense of empathy because we immediately relate to each scene, each interaction. Before we know it, the characters in the story transform into actual individuals, bridging that troublesome gap between non-fiction and fiction: “they are real human beings, and this always brings up something more,” said Frodon.

Clearly, watching a movie isn’t just a nice way to spend Saturday night—it’s a mind-opening experience. “It is a part of this idea, this larger idea that art is this object that is constantly opening these questions: who we are, where we go, how do we relate to others, to friends, children, neighbors…and these issues are constantly brought to light, not finished,” said Frodon. And so it is the critic’s job to zero in on these issues, inventing new insights after each reel.

Same Purpose, New Venue: Film Criticism in the Digital Age

During his Stanford Arts Review class Q&A session, Frodon explained the need for the critic’s presence, particularly in the increasingly relevant virtual realm. Frodon certainly practices what he preaches. In June 2001, he initiated an e-version of Cahiers du Cinema. His reasoning: “it’s a huge new market of course, but it’s also the possibility of making an original and exacting voice heard, based on the love of cinema.” If you love something, you have to let it grow.

If, as Frodon states, the “critic is an artist that directly interacts with society,” then digital media is a necessary, and surprisingly creative, tool for the artist-critic. Creative composition kicks in because now we get to hear and see the critic’s ideas: “What we can do now is mix writing with images, sound, hypertext links, to promote circulation and navigation,” said Frodon in the class. Modern critics are at liberty to layer their words with a host of vibrant stimuli, stirring new associations and emotional responses.

Scott Hutchins, the Stanford Arts Review class instructor, said after his visit, “Frodon really emphasized the importance of making the magazine speak to the audience, always being wary of becoming a magazine that speaks to itself.” Communicating with an audience takes conscious effort on the part of the source, and for Frodon, it is an effort crucial to the persistence of art.

Film, Alive and Well

Although many argue that film, along with other art forms, needs to be put on life-support and fast, Frodon argued for the vitality of cinema at a SLE lecture, which was a part of a cultural series the program holds every Thursday night. One of the students, Vanessa Moody, felt comforted by his perspective: “He had a really optimistic view of film, in terms of the digital realm, in not seeing film as a dying art, but rather as it being reborn in different ways.”

Frodon believes movies are fueled by this eternal, restless human need—“the need of storytelling.” With each work, the filmmaker announces: “I’m going to tell you a story, and you’re going to listen to my story.” And, despite modern conveniences, we go out of our ways to hear those stories, “we go, all of us, out of our home, into the cold… we have to be in the car, in traffic jams, in the train, but we go to theatres and we keep doing it.” So this love of movies, of storytelling and listening, will never subside. “It is not something that can be reduced. My opinion is that we are absolutely not ready to abandon this relationship,” said Frodon.

But to keep this relationship going steady, some things have to change. Frodon fights against the belief that cinema is dying, that the moving image is accelerating towards a cultural cul-de-sac. He must even struggle with those who truly love film, because they “love cinema so much they will not acknowledge that to keep cinema, for it to remain alive, it has to evolve deeply.” So long as filmmakers continue to adapt, to tell engaging stories in fresh forms, they’ll continue to enchant audiences virtually everywhere.

Call for Nominations for Arts Writers/Practitioners 2011-12

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa) intend to offer up to two short-term residencies to arts writer/ practitioners in academic year 2011-12. Stanford University departments, programs, and research centers are each eligible to nominate one candidate for consideration through their chair or director. Nominations must be submitted by November 1, 2010.

About the Residencies

The purpose of the residencies is to bring high-profile arts writer/practitioners into the intellectual life of Stanford, targeting especially those scholars who would be of particular interest to departments and other units on campus and who fit within the respective missions of the Humanities Center and SiCa.

Residencies will be approximately four weeks. Depending on the availability of funds, longer visits of up to eight weeks may be possible. Arts writer/practitioners in residence will receive an office at the Humanities Center and be invited to weekday lunches with the Humanities Center fellows. They will also participate in SiCa’s programming during the academic year. They will receive a stipend of $2000 per week for the duration of their visit plus a housing and cost of living allowance of $3,000 for the month. The Humanities Center and SiCa will cover travel expenses for one round trip from their place of origin.

Nominating units are asked to commit to hosting at least one activity with the candidate, should the nomination be successful. Examples of such activities include: student workshops, faculty discussion sessions, departmental lectures, participation in departmental colloquia, etc. Note that these residents may not offer courses for credit.

Eligibility and Nomination Process

Stanford University departments, programs and research centers are each eligible to nominate one candidate through their chair or director. Preference will be given to departments, programs and research centers that have not previously hosted a Humanities Center/SiCa visitor. Nominations should include:

—Brief rationale for nomination, including a précis of the candidate’s profile and an explanation of how the candidate would fit with the department’s goals, faculty and mission and engage collegially with the intellectual communities of the institutes (approx. 500 words: see http://shc.stanford.edu/ and http://arts.stanford.edu/ for more information about the two institutes)

—A commitment from the nominating unit to host at least one activity with the candidate if he or she is selected, along with a brief proposal for a possible activity (one or two sentences).

—Candidate’s CV. Candidates will normally be artists and writers with a high degree of visibility. Candidates may, but need not, be affiliated with a university or research institution. Candidates are expected to be able to function in an English-speaking academic context.

Deadline

Nominations must be submitted by November 1, 2010. Please submit nominations electronically to Beth Stutsman (bstutsman@stanford.edu).

Selection Process

Selections will be made by a committee convened by the Humanities Center and SiCa. Especially appropriate are candidates who are finishing a project and are in position to share the results with colleagues on campus.

For questions, contact Beth Stutsman (bstutsman@stanford.edu).

Humanities Center-SiCa Arts Writers/Practitioners in Residence 2010-11

The Stanford Humanities Center and the Stanford Institute for Creativity and the Arts (SiCa) are pleased to announce that two international artists have been chosen to come to Stanford in 2010-11 as part of a jointly sponsored pilot program. Nominated by Stanford departments and research centers, the artists will be on campus for four-week residencies. They will have offices at the Humanities Center and will be affiliated with their nominating unit, the Humanities Center, and SiCa.

These residencies bring high-profile arts writers/practitioners into the intellectual life of the university, targeting artists whose arts practice and writing engage with the missions of both the Humanities Center and SiCa.

The following artists have been selected for the upcoming academic year:

Victor Gama is a creative musician, folklorist, instrument maker, and computer musician from Lusophone Africa. Born in Angola, Victor Gama’s music addresses the relationship between technologies and artistic traditions with a particular focus on musical styles and histories of Africa and the diaspora. Trained in electronic engineering, he draws on his interests in diasporic music and in computer generated music. During his residency, he will conduct a public solo performance of his music using his own designed musical instrument (Pangeia Instrumentos). He was jointly nominated by the Center for African Studies, the Department of Art and Art History, the Latin American Studies Center and his nomination was also supported by the Cantor Museum.

Milica Tomic is a Serbian artist working at the intersection of performance art forms, using video, film, photography, light, and sound installation. Her work centers on political violence, nationality and identity with an emphasis on the tensions between intimate experience and media-constructed images. Among her projects is the use of art to address war crimes in Bosnia and Herzegovina and in Kosovo. During her residency, she will present a selected number of her works in which she used art in order to re-actualize past traumatic events. She has exhibited globally including at Venice Biennale in 2001 and 2003, Sao Paulo Biennale in 1998, Istanbul Biennale in 2003 and Sydney Biennale in 2006. Ms. Tomic was nominated by the Department of Drama.

While at Stanford, the artists will offer informal seminars, demonstrations, student workshops and public lectures and will also be available for consultations with interested faculty and students. For additional information, please contact Marie-Pierre Ulloa, mpulloa@stanford.edu.