Doors @ 2pm, Performance @ 2:30pm
$20 adv / $25 dos

This performance of South Indian parai folk drumming and classical dance brings together master parai artist, A. Manimaran, with Bharatanatyam dancer Dr. Prathiba Batley along with a group of accompanying drummers from the diasporic Tamil community. Bharatanatyam is a dance form dominated by the privileged castes, while the parai is associated with the bottom end of the hierarchy, delegated for 1000 years to outcastes. 

 

The underlying message of this performance is one of equality of humans, of the Tamil arts, equality of artists, and an understanding of the relationship between casteism and racism in America. We draw on ideas from Isabel Wilkerson’s book Caste: The origin of our discontents and the recent film Origin. After the performance we will have a community conversation about the relationship between casteism and racism in America, creative sustainability of hereditary arts and artists, and pathways for social mobility and liberation. Then, Aasan Manimaran will lead a participatory workshop. 

 

Manimaran is a Dalit, or anti-caste, social justice activist, at the center of the cultural movement to reclaim the value of the parai drum and drummers from their history of untouchability in South India and its diasporas. He has performed parai in the scores of multiple Tamil films by producers like Santosh Narayanan and A.R. Rahman and conducted over 1500 parai trainings. Dr. Prathiba Batley is a three-time Indian National Champion of Bharatanatyam and a recipient of the prestigious Doris Duke Foundation Dance/USA fellowship for her work surrounding social justice issues using Bharatanatyam.  She is passionate about the underrepresented, repressed, and marginalized communities with whom she collaborates to provide a voice through art. She is also a professor of statistics with over 65 peer-reviewed research publications, over 100 conference presentations, and prestigious research grants.