Esmail: She Will Transform You

Description

She Will Transform You is centered around a beautiful poem of Indian-American author Neelanjana Banerjee. She speaks about the beautiful relationship of an immigrant and her child to their country of origin, and the significant role a child from both cultures has in bridging the divide between them. As a child of immigrants, I have felt both that distance – of being the ‘other' in both America and India – and also the resonance of being at home wherever I am.

The piece moves in and out of a Hindustani raga (p/d) called Rageshree — which has such a lush resonance about it, and is also harmonically grounded in an unusual way (with the 4th instead of the more common 5th, which makes our ear feel like it's never quite ‘home') – so it has both a sense of belonging and distance. It's those two feelings – of belonging and distance – and the journey between them, that I wanted to explore in this work.

-Reena Esmail