
concert
THE FAKIRS OF GORBHANGA (BENGAL)
Second set
Songs of a free man
Armaan Fakir : chant, dotara et jhuri
Golam Fakir : chant et dotara
Babu Fakir : chant, harmonium et dotara
Akkas Fakir : chant et duggi
Gopen Debnath : dhol et khol
Itinerant minstrels, mystical singers, mendicant philosophers, individuals that are viscerally free and humanist….the fakirs from Gorbhanga village live a stone’s throw away from the Bangladeshi border. As night falls, they like to come together at the akhra (or ashram), a circular and open hut, which is a sacred space in nature. Gathered around a cup of tea, they remake the world and sing until they can sing no longer.
Two repertoires animate these sessions: the Baul-Fakir gana, devotional songs bearing the influences of bakti and Sufism, which give importance to the poetry of the famous Lalan Fakir (1774-1890), and the bangla qawwali, a genre attributed to Gaus-ul-Azam (1826-1906). Accompanied by the lute dotara, the harmonium, small cymbals jhuri, the dholok drum and the tabla, the fakirs of Gorbhanga sing tirelessly of their search for the invisible, formless master.