Toronto

School of art and design Toronto

Visiting Toronto after 25 years and staying in the same house I did then! Rosemary Jeans Antze, a former National Ballet of Canada dancer and her Anthropology professor husband Paul Antze are so alive with inspiring conversation. Their first daughter Emily was 6 months old then. She is now 25 and has turned an intellectual too. She has a younger sister who is into studying animal behaviour. Rosemary took me on a drive round the streets of Toronto and to the art gallery of Ontorio. Fantastic architecture of wood standing next to another very interesting architecture of the school of art and design which is a rectangular building standing on stilts. There is an exhibition of wood and the trees within the wood in the art gallery that is really amazing. Rosemary also took me to the alumni get together for the 50th anniversery of National ballet school of Canada. Got to watch classes, see rehearsals etc. Heavenly gift for some one passionate about dance.

Thomas Alva Edison

Went with my brother Ravi to Thomas Alva Edison's laboratories today in New Jersey. Amazing. So interesting! The inventor of electric bulb, gramophone, cement, motion picture and several others. Overwhelming. He had the first motion picture shooting studio built on circular moving platform to have the whole building move to get sun shine inside. In North America the sun rises at different points at different months of the year. The machine shop, the elevator he used, the first song recording etc etc are all there just as he had left them. He even put a tiny gramophone inside a doll to make it talk. Just great feeling visiting it and listening to his voice, seeing the first motion pictures ever made.

Earlier it was a visit to Rubin museum of Himalayan art in New York. The exhibition on cosmology is mind blowing. Feel good walk around Union Square meeting Abby Robinson after six years, walking around with her and trying to spot the iron man sculptures on top of buildings who look like they are just about to jump off. Nice break from my lecture routine.
Lovely trip to Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum in Boston. an intimate experience of the arts. C
see my pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/vrdevika

New England

What a beautiful place this is! The drive from Amherst to Mt.Holyoke is so very beautiful. the drive back is so nice with the sun shining on the trees which are getting green and all the colour and amazing stars. I cant help but be awestruck. My mind keeps going over the Natya dance presentation at Peabody and Essex museum. the way the space was used and the charm of choreography. As I always say, it is the audience that determines the way of the dance. and the place and surroundings. beautiful. Natyashastra itself says one must dance according to kaala (time) and desha (place). That is what most dancers do. In my opinion there is only good dance and bad dance. Good dance is what touches the heart irrespective of technique and mode etc. The academics can shout from roof tops about what dance should be. But dance is what it is.

Us 2010 II

Sun is shining bright. They said it would not. But it is still cold outside. It is so cosy to be sitting inside. At Amherst feel like I am home in Konda and Aparna Reddy's home. Konda is a friend from world education and as strict as one can be with himself. He is working for world ed and doing his PhD in Amherst College. Betsy and Peter Nelson drove me here from their town Harvard. A lovely home with absolutely beautiful things. Both in their seventies, they have not slowed down at all. They are my friends from IPN and we have met around the world. Betsy is one of the kindest persons I have met and Peter is a charmer. They drove me to Salem for the "Sensational India.." fest going on at Peabody Essex Museum with Natya theatre of Chicago dancing. The day turned out to be quite beautiful in contrast to the rainy and cold previous day. kathryn Myers drove to Wellesley from Connecticut for the seminar on Gond art of India and the exhibition. What a nice suprise to meet Stephen Huyler. I told him that a friend gave me his "Daughters of India" book and said one of women featured could be me and that I was greatly pleased that the friend had referred to Suniti Narayanan. He too loved Suniti. I told him how we bonded before her death. I took a picture with him. His presentation of Sonabai was amazing. Met a charming couple from Connecticut Kumars of INTACH CT. A nice Indian lunch and a viewing of the Gond art exhibition but the hall was too cold and made me sleepy though I was so very much interested in the papers being presented. Betsy and Peter came to Wellesley college to pick me up. Peter informs me that Hillary Clinton went to Wellesley. Charming town. Dinner at an Indian restaurant with their son Charles, his wife Stacy and their children. Stacy is very fond of Indian food and comes there often and knows all recipes there. She also has a very dear friend in the school where she teachers who is Indian and teaches her Indian cooking. we then went to Harvard town to the Nelson home and next day to Peabody and Essex museum etc. Dropped the camera and feeling very sorry about it. Betsy has given me her camera for the rest of the trip but see some pictures at http://picasaweb.google.com/vrdevika