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Echoes of tomorrow

JAN 16 - How does tomorrow echo? One can tell about the past because it echoes through books, art and culture. Similarly, one can tell about the present which not only echoes but also speaks with some clear images. The most dominant echo of our times is the cry of people who are in pain. One can hear the sounds of gun fire and bomb explosions on a daily basis in the metropolis and near homes. A strange mixture of slogans and smell of the tyre burning has become the feature of the city. But out of all the echoes of chaos and violence, we are all anxious to hear the echoes of tomorrow.
Sutra, an organisation of the Nepalese artists of the younger generation organised a talk programme in the hall of Nepal Tourism Board on 8th Jan. 2004. The title of the programme was ‘Echoes of Tomorrow-1’. It was the same group that had organised a week-long art-workshop talk sessions in Tapoban at the Nagarjun hill last month. The talk programme was an epilogue to the past activities of Sutra and in the meantime it was a kind of prelude to the activities that it aims to create in the future. The Sutra representatives, Ashmina Ranjit and Salil Subedi highlighted the works that Sutra has made since the time of its inception on the occasion. They said that the Sutra is a platform for the artists working in the experimental trends.
The programme was an occasion of the sharing of ideas among the painters, film makers, writers, musicians and theatre artists. A leading theatre director Sunil Pokharel shared the idea that a dramatic text echoes with different notations used by dramatist, directors and their fellow artists.
The multiple echoes create a creative tension among the artists, directors and playwrights. And, they solve it out through dialogues and discussions. But when the artists leave the stage, they go out in a silent and peaceful state of their minds. Pokharel said that the catharsis, a theatrical and psychological phenomenon does not only occur to the audience, it also occurs to the artists. It has happened to him, he confessed.
Musician Aavaas said that the music of tomorrow should have the local tone. We should understand the power of the Nepalese indigenous art and music. They are more popular than what people in general boast of the modern Nepali art and literature, he said. Poet Bairagi Kainla said that tomorrow in Nepal should be a time for the plurality of voices. We should evoke a tomorrow that is more democratic in terms of the ideas. We should break the monoaesthetic way of listening to the echoes, i.e. defining art and literature in a fixed manner, he added. Senior painter Uttam Nepali said that an artist works according to the echo he or she hears.
Similarly, writer and thinker Khagendra Sangraula said that the politicians and the artists listen to the echoes of tomorrow differently. Artists do it through colours, sounds and words. They are free not to involve themselves in politics. But as free individuals, they fight against the social injustice. They happen to take part in the dialogue with the mainstream political parties. In many cases, they have become the first to raise voice against the social discriminations, and have worked as the torchbearers to the politicians, said Sangraula.
As a speaker myself, I expressed my views that one is able to hear the echoes of tomorrow by mastering over the resources available to him or her at the time. The Nepali theatre of tomorrow will emerge from the kind of people who hold its mechanism at the present. The theatre should be in the hold of the theatre people. And, the people involved with the theatre should develop a habit of engaging in dialogue because tomorrow depends upon the quality of minds involved at the present.
Art critic and dramatist Abhi Subedi said that the artists can not determine the volume of the echoes that their works will create in the minds of the viewers. Artists can only create the structures where viewers can get to listen to the echoes, ie, find the meanings. He further said that the painting does not echo in the way other forms of art do.
A painting contains the most silent yet powerful echoes. Its power lies in arresting the viewers’ minds. The more powerful a painting is the more attentive does a viewer becomes. Moreover, a viewer goes through a process of transformation. He or she becomes the listener. A piece of painting, a visual form of art, becomes an aural medium. It gives itself to the musical form. Many miracles take place when the viewer looks at the painting, said Subedi.
However, the question, how does tomorrow echo raised in the beginning of the article, can be answered. Echoes of tomorrow have the inter-connectivity with the echoes of our present and the past times. One can listen to the echoes of tomorrow only when he or she holds power of interpreting echoes of his or her time. We need to develop certain strategies that have strong bases in the context of our times. Nepali art has its powerful history, culture and a vibrant present. They are the tools with which we can listen to the echoes of tomorrow.Posted on: 2004-01-17 04:13

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