Living with Gods: Popular Prints from India
Join us for the following in-person programs related to the Focus Exhibition. For programs requiring advance registration, you may register online or call Guest Services, at 937-223-4278, during regular museum hours. Be sure to also explore the downloadable interactives. Check back often for updates and new information!
IN-PERSON
“Colonial Interlude: The Nottuswara Sahityas of Muthuswami Dikshitar”
Film Screening
Date: September 10, 2 – 3 p.m.; doors open at 1:30 p.m.
Cost: Free for museum members; included in price of general admission
Location: Mimi and Stuart Rose Auditorium
Join renowned composer and filmmaker Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran for a screening of his award-winning film “Colonial Interlude: The Nottuswara Sahityas of Muthuswami Dikshitar” in our Mimi and Stuart Rose Auditorium. Screened in conjunction with our exhibition Living with Gods: Popular Prints from India. Q&A will follow the screening of this film.
Please note that doors will open at 1:30 p.m. and this program will begin promptly at 2 p.m. Doors will close 10 minutes after the start of the film.
About the Film:
Explore the story of this fascinating encounter between two diverse musical traditions in colonial India when the southern Indian composer Muthuswami Dikshitar (1775–1835) wrote lyrics in Sanskrit to colonial tunes that had arrived on Indian soil with the British East India Company.
Written and directed by Cincinnati-based composer and scholar Kanniks Kannikeswaran, this documentary film traces the musical journey of Dikshitar through various sacred sites and explores the contrast between traditional raga-based compositions and the nottuswara sahityas (songs with Sanskrit lyrics written to Western tunes). Featuring footage from temples, festivals, and interviews with folk music performers from the Cincinnati area, the film offers a breathtaking view of eighteenth-century European tunes that traveled across the world and took on varied forms in India and in the United States. “Colonial Interlude” won the “Best Documentary Film” award at the Indian Film Festival Cincinnati 2023, where it was featured as the closing film of the weekend. Maestro John Morris Russell—Director of the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra—describes it as “…an extraordinary story that I knew nothing about. It has really changed my view about music making and the power of music to bring people together.” The documentary film “Colonial Interlude” is made possible in part with project support from the Ohio Arts Council.
About the Director:
Dr. Kanniks Kannikeswaran is an internationally renowned music composer, educator and scholar who is known for his sustained contribution to music and community for the past 25 years. His recent viral video, Rivers of India, features leading Indian singers and has received critical acclaim. Kanniks is regarded as a pioneer of Indian American Choral music; his far-reaching work in this area has touched the lives of over 3500 performers, inspired the flowering of community choirs in more than 12 U.S. cities, and built new audiences and collaborations. His research and his first-ever recording of the Indo Colonial Music of eighteenth-century composer Muthuswami Dikshitar have received critical acclaim. He has collaborated with well-known musicians and ensembles such as Bombay Jayashri, Kaushiki Chakraborty, Ranjani and Gayatri, Lakshmi Shankar, the Cincinnati Chamber Orchestra, the Cincinnati Pops Orchestra and others. Kanniks is the recipient of several awards including the Ohio Heritage Fellowship and the Distinguished Alumnus Award from IIT Madras.
IN-PERSON
Calendar Art from India and Sri Lanka in the Collection of the Dayton Art Institute
Date: October 28, 2 – 3 p.m.
Cost: Free for museum members; included in price of general admission
Location: Leo Community Room
In the late nineteenth century, an Indian artist trained in the realistic painting style of the British rulers transformed the visual culture of India. Earlier painters often emphasized flat perspective systems and limited color palettes in contrast to the naturalistic spatial conventions and colors introduced by the Europeans. The adoption of the printing press fostered a technological revolution that enabled the mass publication of such paintings, which were often used to illustrate calendars that were easily accessible to the broad population.
This talk explores the history and subject matter of such prints and the role they played in sustaining Hinduism and other indigenous religious traditions during a time of great cultural change.
About the speaker:
Dr. Susan L. Huntington is a Distinguished University Professor, Emerita at The Ohio State University. A specialist in the art of ancient India, her research has focused on the Buddhist and Hindu traditions in particular. Among her numerous publications is Leaves from the Bodhi Tree: The Art of Pala India (8th–12th Centuries) and Its International Legacies (with John C. Huntington), a pioneering work that continues to serve as the standard on the subject today. It doubled as the catalog for the exhibition of the same name, organized in partnership with the Dayton Art Institute and hosted here in 1989. Over the course of her career, Professor Huntington has been honored with numerous distinctions and awards, including from the John Simon Guggenheim Foundation, the Fulbright Award program, the National Endowment for the Humanities and the Smithsonian Institution. With John C. Huntington, she is a founding Director of The John C. and Susan L. Huntington Photographic Archive of Buddhist and Asian Art at the University of Chicago.
M. K. Sharma (Indian, active 20th century), Vasudeva Crossing the Yamuna River with the Infant Krishna, about 1960–1970, offset lithograph on paper. Gift of Susan L. Huntington, 2022. 40.88