Dr. Girish Kaul, our program executive director of the Fulbright office in Delhi. I gave him my finished paper bird...
Learning paper craft.
Learning how to make a beaded ankle bracelet.
Sunday, July 10, 2011
Rashmi's school visit
This teacher showed me photos of himself in his heyday as a really amazing looking dancer with full make-up. I got a private lesson in hand gestures, not mudras, but hands to tell a story. He was still very graceful and generous with his time.
Poster art lesson with upper class students. School is based on the English system, so this is a public school, which we call a private school because you pay tuition. They have 5,000 children, all must swim, play sports, dance, learn music, besides the academics.
Sharing ideas with a fellow art teacher.
Rashmi's school teaches all the arts, they learn classical Indian and Western instruments.
Learning Odissi Dance
Gretchen and I in a nice finished pose.
Getting our first Odissi style dance lesson at Rashmi's school.
I would like to point out I am almost exactly like the teacher...
National Art Museum
This really fascinated me. The "gate" and the shape of the structure behind it, are reminiscent of the "cloud gates" at the Temple of Heaven in China. This is in India, a Buddhist stupa and gate. The stupa was for the relics of the monks. As the architecture traveled to China, it became the "pagoda".
The head of the museum was trying to convince me this is a toy. Really? You are (over 1,000 years ago) going to mine tin from one mountain, copper from another mountain, cut down tons of trees to make a fire hot enough to melt the stuff together to make bronze. Meanwhile, you create the original form out of wax, create a mold, then pour it in to make ONE ANIMAL on wheels for your little junior? In mesoamerica it has been determined that wheeled "toys" were symbols of transformation, into death, the ultimate transformation.
The art museum is the old-fashioned kind with dusty glass cases and not much information. Besides the sweat that is dripping from places none of us knew existed... Here is a good example of greco-roman influence. You can tell from the tilt of the head and the pattern of the hair.
Lectures...lots of 'em
Lectures on government, water shortages, women's issues, education, transportation, art, history, economics (sort of) etc. Panel discussions and of course visits to museums and ruins.
AFTER the lectures, we go out to eat...left to right, Gretchen (NYC), Megan (W. Va.), Ida (NYC), Me, Viktoria (IL) and some random guys at the hotel.
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