Raks-e-Shams: Unending Dance of Light, 2014
Single Channel Installation, 45 minutes
Video is available on demand
Performance & Concept: Seema Kohli
Cinematography: Marlène Ila Popovic, Sakthi Bhagat
Editing: Marlene Ila Popovic
Sound Design: Sahil Vasudeva
“We see death as a full stop. But it is not. The energy does not stop flowing at that point. It recoups, re-forms, and moves on. Death is not the end. It is energy changing direction, coursing on again in a different form and space.”
– Seema Kohli
Raks-e-Sham: Unending Dance of Light, 2014, is a seven-part meditation on death, birth and the journey of the soul. Filmed on the banks of the Ganges in Varanasi, the sacred City of Light, it finds its form, in exhibition, as a single channel video performance. In the piece, the artist experiences Varanasi as a “vortex” of energy, a place where the “dance of rejuvenation” happens in quick time and “quite nakedly.” As in previous video works, the artist enters an almost trance like state, giving herself over to a spontaneous interaction with the environment and the energies she perceives there.