India’s biggest multidisciplinary arts event, Serendipity Arts Festival is back in Goa for its fifth edition. The cultural festival that aims to bring together eclectic creative expressions from South Asia will be held between December 15 and 23. Expect a reverie over performances by world-renowned artistes as well as national-level mavens across fields like dance, theatre and music, and visual arts.
The performing arts segment will see a curation by prominent personalities like tabla maestro Bickram Ghosh, composer and guitarist Ehsaan Noorani, stage actor-director Quasar Thakore Padamsee, dancer Mayuri Upadhya, and Bharatnatyam exponent and vocalist Geeta Chandran.
Musical renditions
Bikram and Ehsaan will curate the music section that will offer projects and performances in diverse genres like classical, fusion, folk, indie pop, rock, and more. Bickram will join forces with artistes like A Shivamani, Taufiq Qureshi, Ricky Kej, and others for curatorial purposes. The section will have Sufi-Folk Tales that will see Parwati Kumari and folk singer Kalpana Patowary coming together for a medley of folk music and qawwali jugalbandi.
Innovators like Sanjay Mondal will lead a troupe of children who will play instrumental music with instruments made of scrap and waste material. Bickram will pay tribute to legendary music composer RD Burman through his project titled The World of Pancham: An RD Burman Tribute that will bring a collection of songs and stories in memory of the music stalwart. Bickram will also curate this year’s edition of River Raag, a sunset cruise featuring classical music performances.
Ehsaan will curate Spotlight: Indie & Folk Music Showcase that will feature a gamut of voices from North-East India over a soulful affair with jazzy riffs and dreamy vocals. Some other notable music acts include Jo Dooba So Paar, which will shed light on Sufi singer Ameer Khusrau woven in a Dastaan and live Qawwali singing, and Ghatam Tarangini which is a clay-pot percussions musical act amongst many.
Dance-Drama
The festival will also dive deep into storytelling, presenting a slew of dance-drama and narration-based art forms. For one, Geeta will curate productions like Game of Dice, inspired by an episode from the epic Mahabharata that will have Kathakali, Chhau, and contemporary dance forms presented in an inventive style.
Some of the other anticipated acts in the category include a dance workshop titled For The Love Of Lavani; the play Sari: The Unstitched, which explores the journey of six yards; Lavanya Katta that follows the journey of Lavani dance over the years, Cycle of Love that explores the ups and downs of a relationship through contemporary dance; Entheos which is a song-dance act showing an amalgamation of mystic philosophies of Sufism; Panchabhutam which is a Mohiniyattam thematic presentation in a recital format; One Hundred and Eleven which is a duet between a ballet dancer and a paraplegic dancer; Nava which is a titillating play on loves of trans-women and many such acts. Apart from that, the festival will also have a street dance battle under the title On The Move. It will see the country's finest street dance artistes showing their electrifying moves and encouraging the street dance culture in India.
Serendipity Arts Festival will be held between December 15 and 23 at multiple venues in Panjim, Goa.
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