When: Sunday, April 15, 2018. 6 PM onwards
About AATMASPHERE:
The Dara Okat Aatmasphere is a sonic experiment exploring the hidden power of the fourth way enneagram, a nine-pointed form designed by G.I. Gurdjieff in 1949. The idea of the installation is to use music, image and movement within a circle by engaging different sets of people in numerous musical contexts to experience sound in a way never experienced before! This installation involves 6 people sitting in a circle consisting of nine points (enneagram). The idea behind the aatmasphere is to explore a new way of listening to music within several different triangles of energy.
Featuring original music from “A Very, Very Private Mission: The Original Soundtrack to an Imaginary Film”, the 1-hour set takes the listener on a transcendental journey beginning with Autumn and going through Winter, Monsoon, Spring and Summer.
Dara Okat on Voice Vortex, Sarod, Banjo, Ukelele, 12-string guitar,
Flutes and Violin.
About Dara Okat:
Born in 1975, Dara is a musician, filmmaker & graphic-designer presently living in Bangalore. Over the years, he has worked professionally in graphic design and branding in several large firms in Dubai, London and Mumbai. In 2006, he started making films and has since created 15 films (documentaries, music videos, and experimental works).
In the early ’80s, he studied in Montfort School in Yercaud, Salem (in Tamil Nadu) where he started playing guitar at the age of ten. Under the guidance of Mr. David Thompson, he learned choir singing and also began to play drums. Over the years, his interest in Music grew organically. In the late ’80s, when he was studying in Modern High School, Dubai, he was part of the school choir and, under the guidance of Mr. Kevin Oliver, was involved in the production and performance ensemble of two musicals, Starlight Express & Cats, both by Andrew Lloyd Weber.
When in Bangalore studying B.Com at Christ College, he formed his first rock band Feedback and started composing original music. After completing MBA in Wales, UK, he returned to Bangalore and formed another band called ifdotdotdot. They performed at several venues in Bangalore and also recorded two EP’s of original music under the genre of Progressive Grunge. He built a reservoir of music by purchasing numerous CDs and understanding diverse genres of World Music with a keen interest in African, Mongolian & Turkish music.
In 2009, he moved to Varanasi to understand and explore the vast world of Hindustani Classical Music. He lived in Varanasi for 3 years and during his time there soaked in Dhrupad (an ancient form of Indian classical vocal music). He began learning the nuances of Dhrupad from Sri Pallab Das, a disciple of Ustad Zia Fariduddin Dagar. The meditative quality of the music and its rich history was what attracted him to this primordial form of vocal music. He, also, began a long, trying journey into one of India’s most underrated and difficult instruments, the sarod. He purchased a 1937-made Afghani Rabaab (which is the precursor to the Sarod). In the summers, he lived in Village Vashisht primarily for the natural hot springs and the wonderful inspiring Himalayan landscape. He lived in a small cottage in the forest in a village called Naggar and composed and recorded several pieces of cinematic music there. All the music composed during his time in London, Bangalore, Varanasi, and Vashisht would ultimately become “A Very, Very Private Mission”, a set of evocative cinematic pieces with the subtext “An Original Soundtrack To An Imaginary Film”. On this production, he composed, sang, collaborated with a trumpeteer in London, bassist and a Hawaiian guitarist from Bangalore worked with a Japanese Percussion Ensemble and played several instruments. This ultimately resulted in over 2 hours of original music which he will release globally at some point. The album illustrates a journey of the evolution of the consciousness using the metaphor of Seasons. 8-years in the making and still in progress, most of the tracks can be heard on www.reverbnation.com/ifdotdotdot
His films are on vimeo.com/hinterland and his graphic-design and art
are on daraokat.carbonmade.com
