Transcendence - The Lotus Chronicles

The perceived division of nature and culture is outmoded. Nature is in us and everything that surrounds us. Catrine Val examines in “Transcendence - The Lotus Chronicles” in a most vibrant collaboration with Madhu Nataraj and the dancers of Natya & STEM Dance Kampni of Bangalore, India - the loss of connection to nature in our modern, technically driven world. From the resulting intercultural perspective, she creates a link from the Western philosophical past and present to the Indian one, while exploring its iconographic peculiarities and interdependencies. In our post digital age we live in a constant romantic abstract concept of Nature. A nature after nature, which disassociates itself from an idealized and ideologies term and must be considered repost pone. Nature does and becomes; is a subject at the same time. Sharanes ( women mystics from Karnataka) like AkkaMahaDevi, Lalleshwari from Kashmir, Bhakti Saint Poet Mira Bai, Freedom fighter & patron of the craft & performing arts industries, KamalaDevi Chattopadhyaya and modern day thinkers like Gayatri Spivak made up the spectrum for this series. Still a work in progress, the philosopher series promises to be a potent artistic work which celebrates the presence of these independent thinkers, reformers and mystics through time and imagines their are appearance in today's world. Catrine chose to shoot this series in the midst of nature and lush greenery- a rarity in Indian metros. This was a conscious decision as apart from 'Woman as nature', she also wanted to avoid the cliche'd settings which make up India in the western context It employs transformations, mirror images, doubling and replications to develop realistic fictions that amaze and surprise the beholder and raise questions concerning functional contexts as well as ideas of value. Captured the dancers and local people in different busy urban spaces as well as in the contrasting juxtaposition of the wilderness and in the traffic collapse. Our longing for nature is still a fixed reference point and an intact romantic worldview in which man and nature are in harmony, though facing an accelerating demise in today’s fully digitised age. In VAL´s work “Transcendence - The Lotus Chronicles” attempts to realise this by scrutinising the relevance of historical philosophical figures and positions in our industrialised society. With a particular female perspective on the philosophical traditions of India and their current influences transformed in our modern, urban global challenge. Loosely based on her last Series of “Philosophers” Catrine Val and Madhu Nataraj Kiran, showcase an intercultural perspective, creating a link from the Western philosophical past and present to the Indian, while exploring all the iconographic peculiarities and inter-dependencies. Seeking, in cooperation with the dancers a new concept of identity - taking into consideration cultural and social circumstances and developing perspectives on different traditional philosophical schools of thought and their current relevance, to create through movement and dance with their new forms of expression and interpretation - an exciting open and artistic journey. The “Transcendence - The Lotus Chronicles” demonstrate through nature after nature that, in its complex, global transformations, brings together different approaches in ideas and longings, which in their own way all aim to go beyond a postmodern thinking. The concept is a quest for a new terminology and a new grammar of thinking about contemporary art, to focus on a new meaning of vision and gender.