SHAKTI
शक्ति
HISTORIC OF THE PROJECT
Sukanya, an Indian singer and artist based in Calcutta, and Arash KHALATBARI, a French-Iranian electro artist and musician based on Reunion Island.
Through screens and the Internet, they exchanged music and composed a few tracks. They discovered their shared passions on several themes: the repertoire of traditional music and modern electronic and experimental music. Their project was to meet and write a musical and artistic work together around the concept of SHAKTI, the feminine power that is at once creative, destructive and regenerative. Following a first residence in Pondicherry in 2023 and the composition of a dozen tracks, the two artists met again in 2024 in Reunion Island to create a visual and sound work with the participation of several dancers based on the island. The music and images created by Arash KHALATBARI come from three territories: Lithuania, India and Reunion Island.
Biography
Sukanya Chattopadhyay started learning Hindustani classical music when she was 7 years old. She earned a Bachelor's and Master's degree in Hindustani Classical Music from the University of Calcutta, as well as a Diploma in Audio Engineering and Music Production from the Sri Aurobindo Center for Arts and Communication. She continues her training with Pt. Yudhajit Roy, Sangeet Bidushi's disciple, Mira Banerjeree.
Sukanya has explored a wide range of collaborations across genres - Arashka, Burudu, Karsh Kale, Midival Punditz, KS Abhishek, and Auroville's Varam, working on the five elements and Indian classical with pentatonic scales. She also sang for Amazon Prime's Made In Heaven show, and performed at NH7 Pune and Solar Delhi, as the music producer for the National School of Drama (NSD) project. Sukanya is currently exploring music with various international artists and is studying soundscapes and properties of sounds from a therapeutic perspective.
Biography
Based in Reunion Island since 2011, the Franco-Iranian artist, Arash Khalatbari (ARASHKHA) composer, producer and performer was born in Iran. When he arrived in France at the age of 14, he began his musical career with Vox Populi where he distilled a mixture of ethnic and "industrial" music and released 3 LPs and several compilations under the VISA label in the 1980s.
After having participated in the creation of music for the theater around the mythologies of the world with the company Tour de Babel, he founded with Dierdre Dubois and Mehdi Haddab in 1994 the famous TRIO EKOVA (signed by the Label SONY in France, SIX DEGREES/USA). Crowned by the selection of the FAIR and winner of the Ile de France of the Printemps de Bourges, EKOVA multiplies the tours with about fifty dates per year, is the first part of the group THE CURE during the tour of the Zéniths in 2000 and signs the sound creation of the show "Noor" for the ballet of Redha.
Alongside the EKOVA adventure, ARASHKHA continues to feed her thirst for encounters and exchanges by collaborating on numerous projects on the Parisian world scene (Iranian, Kurdish, Turkish, African, Comorian, Indian, notably with Susheela Raman.)
He also pursues a quest for meaning in philosophy and sociology. Having become an architect, he worked for several years on the rehabilitation of poor neighborhoods in the suburbs of Paris. He currently runs a social action service in Réunion Island. After obtaining a doctorate in urban sociology, he teaches in several faculties on the island.
CONTACT :
arashkhalatbari9@gmail.com
Management:
SONYA MAZUMDAR:
sonya@earthsync.com
