World Sufi Spirit Festival

Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur

The Nayiks from the village of Aspalsar
A Tribute to Gogaji – The Nayak ritual

From Aspalsar, Sekawadah, Rajasthan

Healers of snakebites associated with the old Saiva cult and therefore often also with Jogis, occupy a prominent place in India, as in many other countries, from Sri Lanka to Egypt. Their real function is primarily to hunt snakes out of the villages at harvest time and in the rainy season, and to cure bites that represent a significant mortality rate in villages in India. The snake or "Naga" is considered a deity by these castes and the rural population, and is the subject of various religious cults.
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Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Monday 20th February- Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

World Sufi Spirit Festival Special Creation
Darbar Morchang Party with Wang Li

From the steppes of China to the desert of Rajasthan the evocation of a travelling instrument

In a nomadic quest to meet the Eastern deserts and the steppes, rivers and mountains of Asia, the Jew's harp pays tribute to the sounds of nature thanks to the incredible variety of tones it proposes. Imitating the sounds of the environment, the leaves touched by the wind, the breath of the mountains, the trill of water that slides along the pebbles of a creek.
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Monday 20th February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Wang Li

The art of the Jew’s harp through the Asian world

Wang Li, a young master of the Jew's harp will be the key to a musical imagination inhabited by an ancient world. Wang Li, almost ethereal poet, flies over the earthly world and lets his inspiration fly from the rooftops of Paris to the peaks of the mountains of China
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Saturday 18th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Monday 20th, Tuesday 21st February- Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Deba ritual - Mayotte

Sufi rituals from the Indian Ocean

Between the Eastern African coast and Madagascar, Mayotte has an ancestral musical tradition, which results from the cultural melting pot found on this island. The influence of the Bantu and Swahili world of the east coast of Africa was brought here through centuries of slave trade. Long before Islam, the Arabs knew this route between the two coastlines of the Indian Ocean – Africa and Asia Minor. Having set up along the African coast, they then went towards the nearby islands.
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Thursday 16th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur

Fareed Ayyaz Party - The art of Qawali

Pakistan

The Pir mystics were for many, and in their own beliefs, at the origin of the conversion to Islam of the populations of the Indian subcontinent.
These Sufi saints professed different turuq (plural of tariqa, mystic "way"). Some of them were buried in India and Pakistan and their sanctuaries, dargah, continue to be the object of important pilgrimages and festivals - the Urs. It is at these gatherings that we can see the singers of qawwali recite poetry primarily inspired by the Sufi tariqa Chishtiya, of Mu'în al-Dîn Chishtî, the founder of this brotherhood in India.
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Monday 21st February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Kailash Kher

India

The contribution that Kailash Kher has made to the field of music has opened a considerable revival of the trend of use of Sufi literature and lyrics, in the global culture of music itself. From a small village in India, to the highlight of the global festival, Kailash has walked the sincere and honest path of life, getting and spreading the message of love.
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Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Monday 20th February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

The Musicians of The Nile

Rababah and gypsy songs

Originating from Upper Egypt, wearing heavy, dark galabiyas (djellabas), the Musicians of the Nile have been touring throughout Europe for about 3 decades, carried by festivals and musical celebrations. More than a simple ethnical encounter, their shows are a real gust of spontaneity phrased by the rolling percussions. Like the old bards of long ago, village musicians and nomads of the traditional feasts, the Musicians of the Nile cross spaces and cultures on donkey-back or by jet.
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Saturday 18th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Tuesday 21st February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Mehardeen Khan Langa
Sher Khan

The art of the flute in Rajasthan, satara and nar

Adopting the ancient traditional shepherd’s instrument, the satara flute, these professional musicians from Rajasthan exploit its possibilities with a rare mastery. Their repertoire remains rural, essentially pastoral. When played two at a time, the first pipe provides the drone, whilst the musician makes the melodic variation using the second pipe.
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Saturday 18th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Monday 20th February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Mtendeni Maulid Ensemble – Zanzibar

Sufi rituals from the Indian Ocean

Following the Islamisation of the island of Zanzibar by Arab traders, various Sufi orders came to settle on the island, amongst them, the most widespread in the Arabic, Eastern and Asian world, the Rifai tariqa, created by the great saint Ahmad al-Rifai (1118 to 1181)
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Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur

Kalakar children contest

In order to encourage the new generation of singers from the Langa and Manganiyar communities and to help preserve the extraordinary oral heritage of Rajasthan, a selection of 20 talented young singers, from 7 to 14 years of age, will be presented in a contest form with the help of the musician Gazi Khan Barna. The audience will be the jury!
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Tuesday 21st February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Prem Sanyas, the Light of Asia

Live Orchestral screenings

A silent film from Franz Osten (1929) relating the life of Buddha with Live Rajasthan music from Divana The masterpiece Silent film by Franz Osten, 1925 - Scenario Niranjan Pal, after a poem by Edwin Arnold.
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Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Monday 20th February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Vahdat sisters – Iran

Sufi singing and poetry

The sisters Mahsa and Marjan Vahdat reflect the current evolution of Persian singing.
A new generation of musicians, educated in a university way and totally devoted to the artistic cause, expressing the continuity of a tradition faced with identity issues in Iran today.
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Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur

Desert Slide

Rajasthan Soundscapes
Vishwa Mohan Bhatt with Divana (Gazi Khan Barna, Anwar Khan Manganiyar, Ferouz Khan Manganiyar & Ghewar Khan Manganiyar)

Desert Vision II: the spiralling sounds of the mohan veena intertwine with the vocal harmonies of Anwar Khan Manganiyar, like a long-distance message passing through the vast desert. Pandit Vishwa Mohan Bhatt claims to be descended from Tansen, master of music in Akbar's court (16th century). But he also composes and innovates like Pandit Ravi Shankar, of whom he was the first student, or like fellow musician Pandit Debashish Bhattacharya, who also shows a real interest in the slide guitar.
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Saturday 18th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur

Traditional dance of the Teratali

A tribute to Baba Ramdev

The Teratali dancers and singers (tera: twelve, tali: rhythms) are the small coloured goddesses of the temples of Rajasthan, of which the dancing blends with the sacred and the ritual of everyday life. Just like the sunlight reflecting on the moon, the light of a candle brushes the surface of these finger cymbals bewitched by their cosmic circling. The candle is placed on a lota, a metal pot itself perched on the head of the dancer, a sword (Talwar) between her teeth.
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Friday 17th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur
Monday 20th, Tuesday 21st February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

Tanourah Sufi Dance – Egypt

The Tanourah Dance

The dance originally belonged to the order of the Mevlevi or Mawlawija (in Arabic) and harks back to the whirling dervishes of Konya or of Syria. The circular Tanoura dance represents the universe and the sun. The dancer, ecstatically whirling, successively takes off his four multicoloured skirts representing the four seasons.
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Thursday 16th February - Ahichhatragarh Fort, Nagaur

Sonam Kalra

Sufi Project

Sufi Gospel Project is an effort to blend all the voices of faith, through song, music and the spoken word. Traditional western gospel melds with Indian classical sounds, and Indian spiritual texts are enriched by elements of western poetry to create a sound that touches every soul. Revealing that no matter what the language of the lyrics, or the ethnicity of the sounds, there is but one language, the language of faith. And that is the universal truth.
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Monday 20th February - Mehrangarh Fort, Jodhpur

The Manganiyars and the Langas

The musicians and poets of Rajasthan carry in them one of the Indian subcontinent’s most dazzling traditions. Princely, charming, proud of their beauty and virtuosity, these musicians of the desert are blessed with the majesty of their environment – Rajasthan, the ancient “Land of Princes�?, and now a state with an area of 342,000 square kilometres.
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