Hello to Emptiness India

*MOUVOIR Stephanie Thiersch /Goethe Institute Max Müller bhavan (Kolkata, Bangalore, Delhi)
World premiere spring 2025*

IHELLO TO EMPTINESS is a new version of the production HELLO TO EMPTINESS, which in its genesis is designed as a series and has so far brought to life the editions Greece (2022) and Korea (2023).
The choreographic concert has been developed in March and April in Kolkata/India, where it will premiere in the large theatre BD Birla Sabhager at the beginning of April 2025. The subsequent Indian tour will bring the company to Bangalore and Delhi.

The multi-faceted cast includes next to acclaimed Indian singer Parvathy Baul, who introduces the company in the Baul tradition, Ukrainian singer and musician Mariana Sadovska, Spanish dancer and countertenor Juan Kruz Diaz de Garaio Esnaola, French dancer and countertenor Julien Ferranti, French dancer, singer and musician Manon Parent and Indian dancers Riya Mandal and Joshua Sailo. The team sets out in search of the lost knowledge of rituals of longing and mourning. A “choir of elders” comments on the chants and images, connecting darkness with light.
Coming from different cultural realms the outstanding artist personalities on stage combine songs and rites from the Balkans and Europe with the Baul tradition and other Indian song and dance repertoire to create an evening that traces the intimacy and, at the same time, the communal and unifying nature of the laments.

HELLO TO EMPTINESS INDIA won the Goethe-Institut’s internal South Asia competition and
was chosen from 25 internationally renowned projects as the 2025 production due to its “artistic excellence and the diverse links to India’s rich music and dance traditions”. In February 2024, a 3-week preparatory research trip took place with documentary filmmaker Hajo Schomerus, scientist Dr Rita Panesar, filmmaker Moinak Guho and Stephanie Thiersch.
Among other things, discussions took place with various religious representatives in Bengal, funeral pyres in Varanasi, communities in Purulia and their laments and discussions in academic circles, as well as with musicologists and their research. The results were used to prepare the rehearsals in 2025 and lead to the installation ‘Voices of Laments’, which artistically juxtaposes and connects mourning rituals in Korea, Greece, India and Kenya.