Ancient myth, music and barbecues on Otley Chevin

Ahmed Kaysher cites a story from his childhood as the moment which opened his mind to the possibilities of using age-old stories to educate people about cultural, sexual and racial discrimination in the modern world.

“I grew up in a beautiful village called Palpur in Bangladesh. I have so many good and vivid memories from there. Endless green fields, hard working farmers, in many ways it was a simple life but it is the inspiration behind all of my creative activities.”

Ahmed, 44, studied chemical engineering at Shahjalal University of Science and Technology in Bangladesh and did post-graduation in marketing at the university of Bedfordshire. He now lives in Leeds, working as a librarian. Nine years ago he founded Saudha, a society of poetry and Indian classical music, with the stated aim of using both mediums to overcome discrimination and to promote inclusivity. For the last eight years, he has run RadhaRaman Folk Festival, a three-day long festival of music and dance which takes place around the time of the summer solstice and which runs throughout the night, meaning participants get to see the rising of the sun.

“Whatever the art form I tend to approach or perceive intellectually, I actually look for the sense of poetry in it. I class myself as a spiritual disciple of great Swedish film maker Ingmar Bergman (1918-2007) and French philosopher Jack Derrida (1930-2004). Bergman was a poet of celluloid, he actually introduced me to the philosophical interpretation of Western classical music with all of the extremely poetic films he made.

“I discovered Indian classical music later and founded an organisation called Saudha about eight years ago, with the finest Indian classical vocalist in the West, Chandra Chakraborty. We started a new effort to delve into the development of a new way of presenting Indian classical music for anyone and everyone, by making it more meaningful and merging it with other form of arts, such as Western classical music, poetry, dance and so on. We developed this hypnotic way of presenting transcendental music and staged it around different cities.”

He has already taken performances to London at the Purcell Room in the Southbank Centre and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, where he hopes to take his latest project.

“RadhaRaman Folk Festival has been running for last nine years in Leeds and it has become an international festival of folk music, with day and night-long performances from international line-ups. It’s all about experiencing the joy of life, the ecstasy of music and combining that with, for an example, a barbecue in exciting places like Otley Chevin. It gives audiences an opportunity to explore the lyrical landscape of the North through captivating folk music, haunting poetry, dance and other art forms.”

Now the father-of-one is set to bring his latest creation, an opera, to Leeds - it already premiered in London at the Rich Mix Theatre, where it won a standing ovation. Narrated in English, it tells the story of a snake charmer and his daughter, a prince and a poisonous snake but is interwoven with the themes of class struggle and the travails of modern capitalism.

“This is absolutely a new input in the world music,” says Ahmed. “I am very passionate about it because I find a strong link between poetry and this ancient art form and I feel it has something new to offer. These operas can be called folk ballads, they have a strong affinity to the story of the rural areas of Bengal and a connection to song and dance.

“The story is about the struggle of the daughter of a snake charmer and how she overcomes a hostile class conflict to marry a prince. It is a story of protest against institutions. I found a huge resemblance with the modern politics of the world and particularly, the ruthless face of capitalism.

“I have deconstructed those ancient myths and other myths from around the world and allegorised them with modern issues. And because they are narrated in English, anyone around the globe can connect with them.”

Ahmed, whose grandfather was British, even a corollary from his own life, as he explains: “When I was growing up, we had a tin-shed outside our house. We used to call it ‘Banglow’. A big citrus tree called Jambura Gach grew just by that Banglow house. One day, when I came home from primary school, it was being rebuilt with modern materials and I saw a long beautiful snake coming out from a hole by that citrus tree and fleeing away somewhere. I was transfixed. At that age, I knew snakes were poisonous but I couldn’t move. When I grew up, I learned that many people believed snakes protected their homes and so that childhood incident had a longlasting effect on me. It was a sense of loss, of everything falling apart thanks (through?) to the march of globalisation and it was coupled with it was a sense of helplessness.

“Looking back, I don’t know if that fleeing snakes was an illusion or real but it left a mark on my mind. It’s the idea that we live in this brutal and yet beautiful world full of mystery but also solipsism. Trying to understand that has shaped my life.”

But Ahmed says it’s not just about the story. He maintains there is something inherently moving and reflective about the rhythms and rhymes contained in the ancient folk ballads. Furthermore, he argues they can have a positive impact on people’s lives in general. “As a librarian, I do story time and rhyme time in different libraries around Leeds. When I do this, I find children are not paying attention most of the time, they are interested in doing other things. But parents have come to me afterwards to say that those children were later singing the rhymes I did in my session all day long. This is how the performance art leaves its mark in the human mind. Artists are not preachers, they are more loyal to the artistry of the forms they are working on rather than conveying any direct message but the subtle viewpoints contained in the art itself somehow work their way into the minds of those in the audience in exactly the same way.”

He adds: “This is truly a unique artform and the first of its kind in world music, in that it combines theatre, music, poetry and dance through story-telling. The production has a very engaging, visceral look; it’s a very moving story with a modern interpretation. It’s a very moving experience and most certainly will take the audience to the yard under a fairy-banyan tree in Bengal.”

FACTFILE

The production features prominent dancer and actor Sonia Sultana, Mithun Chakra, a percussionist from Bangladesh, folk dancer Sohel Ahmed, veteran musician Amal Podder, poet Sarwar E Alam, singer Jessy Barua Amar Baidya and Raahel Chowdhury, Pretom Saha, Saeed Fahim, Nishat Afza and others.

The RadhaRaman Folk Festival has been shaped by Amal Podder, Amar Baidya, Dilaur Rahman, Sujith Chowdhury, Luthfur Rahman, Akikur Rahaman and Akthar Zaman.

The opera was part funded by a grant from Leeds Inspired and will be hosted at Seven Arts, Chapel Allerton, Leeds on March 31, from 6.30pm.

RadhaRaman Folk Festival returns to Bangladesh centre, Seven Arts and other venues that include few exciting outdoor venues, too, from July 26-28.

Event link: www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/the-class-conflict-live-musical-theatre-with-folk-music-and-dance-tickets-54063598679

Website: www.saudha.org