Man of the Heart is on the life and times of Lalon Shah Phokir, the nineteenth century Bengali Sufi saint and song-maker, whose fame stretches across the political and religious borders dividing Bangladesh and West Bengal (India). It is a multi-media solo-performance incorporating live music, dance, spoken word, video and recorded audio. Without assuming any ‘character’ or ‘story’, it attempts to speak/perform around the biography of Lalon Phokir.

Man of the Heart is also an exploratory piece on the body-based philosophy and practice of a sect among Bengali Sufis and Vaishnavs known as Bauls. Of them, Lalon Phokir is regarded as the greatest. He practised personally but spoke publicly through his songs. His music performance and practice em-bodied a highly syncretic philosophy that drew from diverse religious sources. He confronted orthodox fundamentalisms and preached a radically different search for divinity that, according to his beliefs, could be located within the corporeal frame.

Man of the Heart is located between academic research and creativity, between ethnography and mediated live performance. 

Who has seen                Man of the Heart?

The Man of the Heart Project was launched in 2005, when Sudipto Chatterjee started working with the Calcutta-based Indian director Suman Mukherjee at the University of California-Berkeley. However, its preparation goes back to the early nineties when the ethnographic research began in Bangladesh and other parts of Bengal. The final devising--scripting, designing and performance composition--happened in 2005.

In 2006, the production had its off-off-Broadway run in New York, produced by Nalanda LLC (Berkeley) and presented by East Coast Artists (New York).

In December 2007, produced by Nalanda and Tritiyo Sutra Performance Company, the show was staged for the first time in Calcutta, and then again in September 2008.

In 2009, Man of the Heart  will be developed further in light of new research and is slated to be seen in various other international venues.

a full-length performance in English & Bengali

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Writer/Performer:  

Sudipto Chatterjee

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Director/Scenographer:

Suman Mukherjee

Duration: 1 hour 45 minutes

A Nalanda LLC &               Tritiyo Sutra Performance Company production