Ramayana - an epic of wandering

Followed by a talk with Ilija Trojanow and a discussion with Joachim Schloemer, choreographer

The power to integrate: The Indian folk epic has demonstrated its unique flexibility over the past 1,500 years. Ranjit Hoskoté, poet and curator of Asian art, shows how the Ramayana has interacted with the respective political and cultural conditions, how places and strands of the plot vary, changing the moral and political trend in the process. His thesis: ‘Traditional texts, even religious epics, can explode the ostensible framework of their origins; when they are allowed to take root elsewhere they flourish in a new form.’ His conversation partner, Joachim Schloemer, is the director of the dance project The Abduction of Sita, which was produced in India and draws its inspiration from a central chapter in the Ramayana.

Curator Ilija Trojanow, born in Sofia in1965, lends an authentic and modern voice’ to the dialogue on Otherness and distance (DIE ZEIT weekly newspaper). The title of his prize-winning novel, The Collector of Worlds, could well stand for his cosmopolitan lifestyle. Together with Ranjit Hoskoté he recently published the pamphlet Kampfabsage, which reveals a continuum in Asian-European culture – an opposing view to that advocated in the Clash of Civilisations.