Tonight we had a beautiful concert by Alexei Stroganov who is now Alokesh Chandra and a student of Pandit Ravi Shankar. He was accompanied by Gerhard Rosner who recently made his masters degree for Tabla at the University of Pune. It was special because 10 years back Alokesh was playing his first concert in my studio. While I was listening to the music I remembered all the 10 years back and all what has happened in my life. Even much before those 10 years. The very beginning of classical Indian concerts in Vienna. The very beginning of non Indians learning Indian arts. The many prejudices we all where facing. It was indeed a long journey with many fights against those narrow minded people who thought Indian art is for Indians only. The same people were listening to opera singers and musicians of western classical music who were not from the west but from the east, Japan, China, India. It was that kind of "eurozentristisches Denken" which is so strange to me. I still remember...
Bharatanāṭyam, Indischer Tanz in Wien,