Composed by Australian artist Leah Barclay, this soundscape is a sample from a site-specific sound installation to accompany ZAMEEN at Parramasala 2013, an international contemporary arts festival in Sydney, Australia.

“Mysterious, beautiful and utterly captivating ZAMEEN is a contemporary dance and multimedia work that pulls you into the heart of a remote Indian community fighting for their way of life.”

Within this world, two dancers from one of India’s leading contemporary dance companies, the much lauded Attakkalari – perform an intense, controlled and intricate dance score, inspired by the stories and movement of the community.

An immersive audiovisual environment – built entirely out of recordings done on site with the community itself – sustains the show, pitching you from the very start in the midst of their song and struggle to secure land in the face of large scale damn development.

Both politically provocative and deeply emotional, ZAMEEN simultaneously depicts both the success of this incredible social movement and the ongoing sacrifices made to preserve it.

ZAMEEN is a partnership between CuriousWorks in Sydney, Attakkalari Centre for Movement Arts in India, producer Jehan Kanga, composer Leah Barclay and director S. Shakthidharan. It is the first major outcome from The DAM(N) Project, a venture which began in 2011 when a group of artists from Australia and India journeyed deep into India’s Narmada Valley. They met and lived with communities that are gradually being submerged due to large scale dam development in their region. To date over 30 million people have been internally displaced, and the resulting Indigenous activist movement – the Narmada Bachao Andolan – has become one of the most successful and sophisticated in contemporary history. 

This soundscape was composed and produced by Leah Barclay using only field recordings from the Narmada Valley. 

ZAMEEN

‘Protest Chant’ is a raw field recording from the Narmada Bachao Andolan Satyagraha (non-violent protest) with displaced families from the Narmada Dams in December 2011. The children are chanting about the their submerged homes, displaced families and hope for peace and freedom.

DAM(N) Protest Chant

This raw field recording was made in the regional area of Jobat, where we collected stories and solidarity songs from over 20 displaced groups who had gathered at a satyagraha (non-violent protest). This was our final night at the satyagraha, the children were singing and dancing and we felt extremely honored to have spent time with this inspiring community.

DAM(N) Protest Dance

In Badwani we interviewed Dayal Solanki, a young adivasi (Indigenous of Badwani) whose story became the common thread for our journey. He became our guide leading us to the extremely remote village of Badal, accessible only by fishing boat from a makeshift wharf one hour from the nearest town. The region, which is now almost completely submerged under reservoir, was formerly one of the most agriculturally productive regions in India. We stayed in Dayal’s home, a wooden shelter perched on the arid crest of a mountain, and were welcomed by his family who told their stories of displacement and the hope they placed in their children. In addition to the satyagraha recordings, the core source material in the installation and dance production is drawn from Dayal’s father playing traditional bansuri flute, his sisters singing on the cliffs and the sparse and unsettling soundscapes of the submerged Badal village.

DAM(N) Badal Dusk

This soundscape is based on children singing late at night on the riverbank in the extremely remote village of Badal. The region, which is now almost completely submerged under reservoir, was formerly one of the most agriculturally productive regions in India. This piece happened serendipitously; I was recording the sparse and unsettling soundscapes of Badal late at night when Dayal’s sisters came and sat beside me and started singing over the water.

DAM(N) Badal Children

The source material in the Narmada Sketch is predominately from the regional area of Jobat, where we collected stories and solidarity songs from over 20 displaced groups who had gathered at a satyagraha (non-violent protest). Embedding ourselves within both the satyagraha and remote affected communities was a vital part of capturing stories across the widely varied landscape. 

During the trip we facilitated workshops and enabled the children to collect images, video and sound to tell stories from their perspective. The incorporation of these capacity building workshops within the broader project will showcase the long-term contribution that creative empowerment can make to communities in struggle. Narmada Sketch is developing into both an installation and the score for the original dance production that we hope will tour Australia and India in 2013.

DAM(N) Narmada Sketch

The DAM(N) Project soundcloud is a preview of a large-scale interdisciplinary project that connects Australian and Indian communities around a common concern: water security. It presents the lives of remote communities in the Narmada Valley of North India, displaced by large-scale dam development securing hydropower for Indian cities. The construction of large dams on the River Narmada in India and its impact on millions of people living in the river valley has become one of the most important social issues in contemporary India. 

This project uses the many viewpoints and the living culture in the affected areas as building blocks for the creative process for a series of site-specific installations and a touring production in collaboration with Attakkalari, the leading contemporary dance company based in India. The key Australian collaborators include director Jehan Kanga, media artist Shakthi Sivanathan and composer / sound artist Leah Barclay. These soundscapes draws on material from the first DAM(N) creative development in December 2011. 

thedamnproject

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