Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) 2023 was awash with every hue of art and culture on day 8 as it quenched the thirst of creative fiends for artistic inspiration.
Every corner of the festival, which is fast turning into a mecca of sorts for art enthusiasts, was abuzz with an energy that charged the visitors to plunge into the wondrous world imagined and created for them by artists, performers and thinkers.
All these successes have been brought to life by SAF 2023’s backstage players – curators, planners and organisers – who have diligently threaded together a string of events and programmes that cater to every sensibility, aspiration and curiosity — a herculean feat considering the range and size of the cultural convergence.
The dramatic composition of the quirky play, The Land Of Mea and Lilo, at The Foundry in the Old GMC Complex, stretched the audience’s imagination even as it spurred their inquisitiveness.
The play, produced by Move with Joy & Small Tales, tried to draw out the viewers’ inner child and unadulterated sentiments by sparse usage of language and reliance on clowning and physical comedy.
Curated by Quasar Thakore Padamsee, the theatrical performance began with Mea and Lilo’s finely sketched characters pulling the viewers into a place full of hidden objects to engage them in the challenges hounding them and then walking them through their journey of resolving them.
Movement artist Dipna Daryanani and film producer Priyanka Babbar, who devised and performed the play, kept the tone light and fluffy to foster a deeper connection with the audience.
Nostalgia hung heavy in the air at the ESG Auditorium as filmmaker Nalini Elvino de Sousa and Justina Costa, programme coordinator at Sunaparanta Goa Centre for the Arts, harkened back to the Goa of yore while discussing the immense influence of music on Goan society.
‘Melodies In Motion: Exploring Goan Artists, Their Music, And The Clubs That United Them’, a scintillating talk moderated by Team Goa Familia, took the audience down memory lane as Sousa and Costa exchanged information nuggets on Goa’s musical past etched on shellac records and archived by All India Radio (AIR), Goa. Their discussion emphasised how music welded Goa into a cohesive society.
This year’s SAF went beyond the realm of human bonding to explore ways of ending human-animal conflicts. ‘Solutions For Human-Animal Conflict’, a talk curated by chef Thomas Zacharias and The Locavore Team, attempted to break down barriers between humans and animals by addressing the elephant in the room.
There couldn’t have been anyone better than elephant biologist Nishant Srinivasaiah and Anandram Nagareddy, a farmer from Karnataka, to speak on the topic.
At The Food Lab in the Old GMC Complex, ragi farmer Nagareddy narrated his story of how he made peace with elephants who used to plunder his fields — all he had to do was allocate a part of his field to them. At the end of the talk, participants were served ragi mudde and sambar, which were rustled up by Nagareddy.
At The Theatre in the Old GMC Complex, strains of sarangi, beats of tabla and the jangling of manjira recreated a Mehfil – a place where dance, poetry and music merge to singe the air with the warmth of romance – of bygone Lucknow. Kathak dancer Rani Khanum twirled and tapped her feet, filling the room with the sound of her anklets and dazzling the audience with her performance.
Curated by Mayuri Upadhya, ‘Mehfil’, which comprised Khanum’s dance performance, along with ghazals, thumri, bandish, sher o shayari and everything Lucknowi, offered glimpses of the Nawabi charm in Goa.
At The Theatre in the Old GMC Complex, strains of sarangi, beats of tabla and the jangling of manjira recreated a Mehfil – a place where dance, poetry and music merge to singe the air with the warmth of romance – of bygone Lucknow.
Day 8 came to a thoughtful end as not very far from the Old GMC Complex, the audience at the Multi-Level Parking Terrace witnessed the play, Jump, which attempts to deal with themes like loneliness, depression and suicide in a lighter manner, rendering heavy topics easier to discuss.
The play told an engrossing story of how two diametrically opposite existences collide when a cab driver tries to save a successful female corporate executive from ending her life from the rooftop of a city.
Day 8 came to a thoughtful end as not very far from the Old GMC Complex, the audience at the Multi-Level Parking Terrace witnessed the play, Jump, which attempts to deal with themes like loneliness, depression and suicide in a lighter manner, rendering heavy topics easier to discuss.
As the scenes unfolded, Jump, curated by Quasar Thakore Padamsee, meandered through the contradictions and complexities in the social fabric of urban living even as it revealed the common thread of emotions and human sensibilities running through it.
Amid this philosophical narrative of Maneesh Verma’s play, the suspense of – “will the man succeed in saving her or will she be back to jump again?” – kept the audience hooked. Actors Vidushi Chadha and Sandeep Shikhar brought profundity to their roles with their brilliant acting.