Sakthi Vibrations - Screening a documentary film about Tamil folk arts and Dalit women’s empowerment

Oberlin Shansi is thrilled to have the opportunity to screen the documentary film Sakthi Vibrations produced by Oberlin College alum Dr. Zoe Sherinian ’84 on Friday, May 27 at 2 pm in Hallock Auditorium in the AJLC on the Oberlin College campus. After the screening, Dr. Sherinian will be available to discuss the film with Dr. Jennifer Fraser, Oberlin College and Conservatory Professor of Ethnomusicology and Anthropology.

Sakthi Vibrations explores how the Sakthi Folk Cultural Centre in Tamil Nadu, India, led by two progressive Tamil Catholic nuns, uses the Tamil folk arts to develop self-esteem and economic skills in young Dalit women. Sakthi reclaims the degraded parai frame drum to re-humanize and empower the young women through the physical embodiment of confidence in performance and a regenerated cultural identity in a complex campaign against gender, class and caste subjugation. This ethnomusicological documentary seeks to reveal and analyze Sakthi’s outstanding model for Dalit women’s development that integrates folk arts performance with social analysis, micro-economic sustainability, self-esteem and community development. 

Please join us for this screening, and the discussion that follows, in Hallock Auditorium on Friday, May 27 at 2 pm.