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TIFF 2015 Interview: Gingger Shankar
The musical prodigy pays homage to two unsung Shankars — her mother and grandmother — with a new multimedia performance piece.
As the grandniece of Ravi Shankar, it wasn’t a surprise to anyone when Gingger Shankar wound up becoming a celebrated musician, an in-demand performer, film composer and one of a handful of artists to master the double violin. But while Ravi is the first name that comes to mind when thinking of the Shankar legacy, it’s Gingger’s mother, Viji Subramaniam, and grandmother, Lakshmi Shankar, who truly shaped the artist that she is today; and, as Gingger herself just recently found out, they played a significant role in bringing Indian music to the Western world. It was this knowledge that inspired her to mount a new multimedia performance called NARI dedicated to these influential women. It debuted at TIFF 2015, and consists of a biographical short film narrated by Shankar herself — followed by a live performance that reinterprets 13 of her mother’s unreleased recordings. Shortly before she headed off to sound-check for her inaugural performance, ANOKHI had the chance to sit down and chat with Shankar about this very personal project.
Gingger Shankar wields her signature double violin in a cover of U2s "Sunday, Bloody Sunday."
Photo Credit: Nicholas Bruckman
Matt Currie: What inspired you to make NARI?
Gingger Shankar: My grandmother was a fantastic classical vocalist. She passed away a couple of years ago and gave me all of these scrapbooks, and in these scrapbooks, I saw how involved her and my mother were in the ’70s with the Ravi Shankar tours and the George Harrison tours and they never really talked about it. I started doing research and travelling to India; my partners on this project — Dave Liang, he’s part of the Shanghai Restoration Project and Sun Yunfan, who did a lot of the visuals — we travelled to India a bunch of times and then just uncovered my mother’s recordings. We found this incredible story in these two women and just wanted to tell it. They really weren’t recognized during that time for all their contributions and this huge India music explosion into the West.
Gingger Shankar debuts NARI at TIFF 2015.
Photo Credit: Joseph Fuda
MC: So even you weren’t aware of the extent of their contributions?
GS: I had no idea. Because by the time I was growing up, my mother was a mom and a wife and working a lot of jobs. And my grandmother did some performances here and there, but not to the scale of what they had been doing. And they were really, really humble; they would just say, “Oh yeah, we performed a little bit.” And then we started seeing these [scrapbooks], and it’s, like, my grandmother and my mother at the White House and sitting with Marlon Brando. [Laughs] Like, what is going on?
MC: Was this particular project a unique challenge compared to [climate change project] Himalaya Song, your last multimedia performance piece?
GS: Because it’s a such a personal story, you feel very obligated to make sure everyone’s shown in the right light, but also tell the right story; it’s [my] family . . . they were such amazing people to me, so I just wanted to make sure we did justice to them.
NARI shines a long-overdue spotlight on a hidden corner of the Shankar dynasty.
Photo Credit: Nicholas Bruckman
MC: What can you tell us about this short film that will play before your performance?
GS: It’s basically their stories . . . narrated by me, talking about their lives. It’s all done through animation and photographs that Yunfan did. Then once we get to the performance, it’s a lot of visuals [on stage] and we’re telling the story through song; it’s told through 13 songs that my mother recorded that we reinterpreted. Her voice is sort of carrying through the rest of the story.
MC: What does it mean to you to be a part of what is really a dynasty in world music?
GS: I think it’s a blessing or a curse, depending on what day you ask me [laughs]. Some days it’s a very, very heavy burden, other times it’s really exciting that I get to be around all this . . . The hardest thing in this family is really finding your own voice; because everybody is so prolific and you grow up saying, “Oh, I wanna be like him or her.” And it took me a long time to be like, “Well, this is what I want to be.”
Shankar pays tribute to her inspiration with this exhilarating multimedia performance project.
Photo Credit: Nicholas Bruckman
MC: What would you say is your voice, your style at this point?
GS: That’s a good question. I would call myself multifaceted. That’s all I can say about it [laughs].
MC: Was there ever any doubt that you'd wind up spending your life on stage?
GS: I definitely wanted to be an astronaut for a little bit. But I realized I had no training towards becoming an astronaut; I don’t think violin skills help you up there!
MC: Well, your violin skills are one-of-a-kind, so maybe they’d make an exception.
GS: Maybe. It’s funny; when we did Himalaya Song, Mridu [Chandra] — the director — and I wanted to do a project in space, and we went and met some NASA scientists. That’s all I kept asking — “Is it too late for us to go into space”? And they were like, “Yeah, just a little.”
Art for Shankar's latest album, Beautiful Imperfections.
Photo Credit: Cameron Jordan
Photo Credit: Cameron Jordan
MC: So with breaking orbit off the table, what stokes your fire you as an artist?
GS: I think what inspires me to be an artist is my mother. My mother was an amazing artist, and sort of didn’t have the opportunity to do that. That motivates me — that I’m really lucky to be able to do this.
Visit ginggershankar.com to find out where you can see Gingger and the Shanghai Restoration Project perform NARI. She is also currently promoting her upcoming electro pop album Beautiful Imperfections.
Main Image Photo Credit: Nicholas Bruckman
Matthew Currie
Author
A long-standing entertainment journalist, Currie is a graduate of the Professional Writing program at Toronto’s York University. He has spent the past number of years working as a freelancer for ANOKHI and for diverse publications such as Sharp, TV Week, CAA’s Westworld and BC Business. Currie ...
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