Balakrishnan Raghavan
Belonging to the World: Giving Voice to Sacred Poetry of the Marginalized
Balakrishnan Raghavan is a passionate classical musician formally trained in Carnatic music who engages with, makes sense of, and accesses the world through the poems of the saints from the spiritual traditions of India. He is particularly drawn to poems of historic communities on the margins, on the fringes, the “other’” to the dominant. “They were the alternative, the undercurrent, the subversive,” he says. “This liminal space inhabited by the marginalized saint, the marginalized women from the hereditary artist community, and the marginalized sexual minorities are where my work finds solace, inspiration, and meaning.” He sets to music poems by these silenced poets, to ensure that voices of daring but marginalized poets of our history do not fade into oblivion. and he collaborates with dancers in the art form of Bharatanatyam to bring out visual imagery of these poems. Read Full Bio »
