Transcultural Utopias: Exploring the Afterlives of Rabindranath Tagore, Visions of Utopia, and Aesthetic Formulations in Cultural Diaspora Practice

abstract:This article explores Rabindranath Tagore’s vision of the future, continuously engaged with and drawing from the past, in relation to my own creative practice as theatre and film director, curator, and singer-performer, a practice that continuously engages with the resonances of Tagorean utopia. Through three case studies from the author’s creative engagement with Tagore’s utopia, the article explores (1) the building of transcultural utopias in which Tagore and Leonard Elmhirst participated and how Dartington Hall rapidly became a magnet for artists, writers, philosophers, and musicians; (2) Tagore’s opera Tasher Desh (Land of Cards, 1933), a powerful political satire on fascism/free will; and (3) the author’s feature film Life Goes On and the Tagorean construct of the absent-present mother figure.