Beyond the Notes: The Rasic Sensibility and Ideas of Home

The Academy of Arts, Letters, Culture and Public Affairs

presents
Beyond the Notes: The Rasic Sensibility and Ideas of Home

by Dr. Sharda Patasar
and moderated by Andre Bagoo

Thursday 29th May, 2025

6:00 P.M
Theatre 1, UTT Campus at NAPA. Port-of-Spain

If music is terroir – a living expression of place - then Rasa is its energy.

Literally translated as essence, flavour, rasa defies attempts to define it and so, formed the subject of debate in Indian classical thought for centuries. It is the core underlying theory of the Indian performing arts and is attributed to Bharata Muni’s Natyashastra, a seminal work in Indian theatre, purported to have been written between 200 BCE and 200 CE - a period of about fifteen hundred years. In Indian Classical music, the theory of ragas includes ideas of dominant rasas. A student is taught the exploration of this through a grammar of note combinations and techniques of execution of notes. It is however, defined in simple terms as emotional essence, distilled from emotion (bhāva). Bhāva acts as a catalyst for the birthing of rasa.

Rasa while complex, also cannot be separated from the philosophical world of India. As a concept, it speaks to transformative experience and moves towards self-realization in its ideal iteration. For performance, the possibility of transformative experience is a glimpse into what it means to be consciousness. It is nuanced, and invites us to think outside of binaries. It is an invitation to suspend beliefs and worldviews, to listen and move.In this presentation I do not attempt a philosophical exploration but rather explore the concept through the way that it informs my thinking of creative practice and its role in conceptualizing and composing. This lecture is the first iteration of a larger body of research that is ongoing in the form of music projects, workshops and writing.

I offer, through my own understanding of rasa, an exploration on home and belonging, the relevance of the concept to diaspora and its use as a body of knowledge for expanding creative practice and critical thinking.

For further information, please contact R2hhbnNoYW0gISBtb2hhbW1lZCB8IHV0dCAhIGVkdSAhIHR0

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