CEE Brings Amitav Ghosh and Ali Sethi 
to Philadelphia to Stage the World Premiere of “Jungle-nama: A Story of the Sundarban”, Directed By Brooke O’Harra, and performed by students
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“Jungle Nama: A Story of the Sundarban,” is the world-premiere musical performance of Amitav Ghosh’s first book of verse,  brought to life on-stage with the sounds, lyrics, and composing of singer-songwriter Ali Sethi.  “Jungle Nama” was performed by University of Pennsylvania students, and was directed by Brooke O’Harra.  Performances took place March 2nd and March 3rd, at 7 pm at the Montgomery Theatre in Penn Live Arts (formerly the Annenberg Center for Performing Arts). Both performances were followed by a moderated discussion, led by writer and editor Annie Paul.

Ali Sethi and Amitav Ghosh are the resident Spring 2022 Faculty Fellows at the Center for Experimental Ethnography. During their residency, they collaborated with theater director and Penn faculty member Brooke O’Harra, a team of University of Pennsylvania students, and lead choreographer and artistic director of Usiloquy Dance Designs, Shaily Dadiala, to perform his English-retelling of the legendary Bengali tale of Bon Bibi, a forest goddess and guardian of the Sundarbans. 

In their intensive study with the artists, students experimented with verse, song and movement. Lyrics were drawn directly from Amitav Ghosh’s Jungle Nama, his highly-anticipated foray into verse during a prolific writing career that has spanned 17 books and received top literary honors in modern world literature. In Jungle Nama, Ghosh uses 24-syllable couplets to mimic the cadence of the original Bengali verse used to recite the legend, which is known as dwipidi-poyar verse. Connecting to Ghosh’s longstanding interest in the transnational mangrove forest region known as the Sundarbans, Jungle Nama narrates the tale of goddess Bon Bibi and uses this goddess and setting to speak to the eroding ecosystem of the region. 

Ali Sethijoined forces with Amitav Ghosh in order to provide his mentorship as a composer and songwriter trained in ghazal poetry and qawwali music. Sethi is notable for re-popularizing these singing traditions for young audiences worldwide, combining traditional Pakistani sound with contemporary pop sensibility in hits such as Chan Kithan (2018) and Ishq (2019, and many more.

Brooke O’Harra directed students in the intensive research and performance process, drawing from her experience as a theatre director and dedicated educator, as well as co-founder of the NYC based company The Theater of a Two-headed Calf. Along with teaching students at Penn, O’Harra has developed and directed all 14 of Two-headed Calf’s productions including the OBIE Award winning Drum of the Waves of Horikawa (2007 HERE Arts Center). As a production combining music and dance, Shaily Dadiala, artistic director of Philadelphia’s Usiloquy Dance Designs, has been brought on to train students in Classical Indian dance techniques through which they will perform their rendition of the song and verse of “Jungle Nama: A Story of the Sundarban”

Poster Graphic, Full-Sized PDF: tinyurl.com/junglenamaposter
Instagram/Square Graphic: tinyurl.com/junglenamasquare
Header/Landscape Poster: tinyurl.com/junglenamaheader