Center for Experimental Ethnography Presents "Jungle Nama"

CEE Brings World-Renowned Author Amitav Ghosh and Singer/Songwriter-Sensation 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.

The Center for Experimental Ethnography invites audiences to the world premiere musical performance of Amitav Ghosh's adaptation of an episode from the legend of Bon Bibi, titled: "Jungle Nama: A Story of the Sundarban." Live performances will take place on March 2 and March 3 at 7pm at the Montgomery Theatre in Penn Live Arts (formerly Annenberg Center for the Performing Arts). Both performances are free and open to the public, with limited in-person tickets.

Get Tickets for March 2  

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The event is sponsored by the Center for Experimental Ethnography, a joint center of the Annenberg School for Communication and Penn's School of Arts and Sciences.

About Jungle Nama

Jungle Nama is Amitav Ghosh's verse adaptation of an episode from the legend of Bon Bibi, a tale popular in the villages of the Sundarban, which also lies at the heart of the novel The Hungry Tide. It is the story of the avaricious rich merchant Dhona, the poor lad Dukhey, and his mother; it is also the story of Dokkhin Rai, a mighty spirit who appears to humans as a tiger, of Bon Bibi, the benign goddess of the forest, and her warrior brother Shah Jongoli. The original print version of this legend, dating back to the nineteenth century, is composed in a Bengali verse meter known as dwipodi poyar. Jungle Nama is a free adaptation of the legend, told entirely in a poyar-like meter of twenty-four syllable couplets that replicate the cadence of the original.

Amitav Ghosh was born in Calcutta and grew up in India, Bangladesh and Sri Lanka. He is the author of two books of non-fiction, a collection of essays and ten novels. His books have won many prizes and he holds four honorary doctorates. His work has been translated into more than thirty languages and he has served on the Jury of the Locarno and Venice film festivals. In 2018 he became the first English-language writer to receive India’s highest literary honor, the Jnanpith Award. His most recent publication is Jungle Nama, an adaptation of a legend from the Sundarban, with artwork by Salman Toor. His new book, The Nutmeg’s Curse; Parables for a Planet in Crisis, a work of non-fiction, is due to be published in October 2021. He lives in Brooklyn, New York, with his wife, the writer Deborah Baker.

Ali Sethi is a Brooklyn-based, Lahore-born author, singer, composer, producer and director. His debut novel "The Wishmaker" received widespread recognition and has been translated into five languages. Sethi's musical work combines classical Pakistani music and poetry with contemporary pop music, and he is formally apprenticed to Naseeruddin Saami (since 2008) and Ghazal singer Farida Khanum (since 2012). Sethi's multimedia collaboration "Disruption as Rapture (created with Pakistani-American artist Shahzia Sikander and Chinese-American composer Du Yun) is housed in the permanent collection of the Philadelphia.

Brooke O’Harra joined the UPenn Theatre Arts faculty in July 2016. Brooke has previously taught at NYU Tisch School of the Arts Drama Department and the Experimental Theater Wing, Mt. Holyoke College and Bates College. Her fields of interest include Japanese theater, experimental theater, serial drama, LGBTQ theater and performance, performance with live media and contemporary visual art.

Brooke is a professional theater director and an artist. She is co-founder of the NYC based company The Theater of a Two-headed Calf and 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), It Cannot Be Called Our Mother but Our Graves a.k.a Macbeth (Soho Rep Lab 2008/9), Trifles (Ontological Hysteric Incubator 2010), and the opera project You, My Mother (2012 at La Mama ETC, 2013 in the River to River Festival).

Brooke conceived, directed, wrote for, and performed in the Dyke Division of Two-headed Calf’s live lesbian soap opera Room For Cream which ran for three full seasons (25 episodes) at La Mama, ETC in NYC between 2008-10.

Brooke is currently working on several projects. She recently wrote, directed and produced the 4th part of a nine-part research and performance project titled I am Bleeding All Over the Place: Studies in directing or nine encounters between me and you. The project began in April 2014 at the New Museum, NYC. The project will culminate in a book on directing. Brooke is also the co-creator of a collaborative performance with artist Sharon Hayes called Time Passes. Time Passes is an 8-hour performance that uses the book-on-tape recording of Virginia Woolf’s To the Lighthouse as its spine.

Brooke is current recipient of the Doris Duke Impact Award for Theatre and her work has been supported by numerous awards, grants and residencies including several NYSCA grants, a Franklin Furnace performing artists award, an Arts Matters grant, the NEA/TCG Directors program, an OBIE award grant, a residency at The Performing Garage, and an LMCC space grant.