
An Evening of Poetry, Memoir, Dance and Conversation: These Beloved Faces: Daughters on Mothers, A View from India
In celebration of Women's History Month, Asia Society presents an evening of poetry, memoir, dance and conversation, bringing together artistic, personal and global stories of womanhood. Join us for an intimate discussion of the mother-daughter relationship with writer, actress and child-rights advocate, Nandana Dev Sen, and author, art historian and Asia Society President Emerita, Vishakha Desai — with interpretations in movement by choreographer and dancer, Preeti Vasudevan. This unique program will weave together language and legacies, poems and performance, creating a vibrant, multi-sensory palette that presents the many shades of motherhood (and daughterhood).
Inspired by the poetry of one of Bengal’s most beloved writers, Nabaneeta Dev Sen (translated by her daughter, Nandana), this special program will feature bilingual poetry readings, original dance compositions, and a wide-ranging conversation touching on love, rebellion, marriage, motherhood, and migration. Vishakha and Nandana will explore the creative process of writing, the challenges of translation, and that sparkle we inherit from our mothers. They will be joined on stage by Preeti, who will share, through performance, her own interpretations of Nabaneeta’s extraordinary poetry.
Nandana Sen and Vishakha Desai have both published highly acclaimed books with a focus on their mothers, which will be available for purchase and personalization at the event:
Acrobat is a radiant collection of poetry about womanhood, intimacy, and the body politic that together evokes the arc of an ordinary life, both picking apart and celebrating the rituals that make us human. Translated with lightness and lyricism by Dev Sen’s daughter Nandana, an award-winning poet herself, Acrobat is at once compassionate and unsparing, conversational and symphonic. In Gloria Steinem’s words, “Acrobat will rescue us, and be loved around the world.”
Vividly conjuring the complexities and exhilaration of a life rooted in multiple places, World as Family is an award-winning memoir by Vishakha Desai. Through her personal story of growing up in a Gandhian family in India and her subsequent career as a dancer, curator, teacher, and institutional leader in America, she reframes the idea of being global with multi-rooted local and national belongings.