Goa: Art
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Serendipity Arts Festival: 2016
The Hindu, December 8, 2016
Goa’s Serendipity festival to celebrate diversity in art
Prakash Kamat
The Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF), a stellar 8-day event, announced a line-up of 33 global artists who will showcase their work in Goa from December 16-23, 2016. The rich culture and history of Goa is expected to provide the perfect backdrop for the grand festival.
SAF will present over 40 projects and exhibitions featuring noted artists like Kabi Raj Lama, Bandu Manamperi, Lisa Stertz, Escif, Billy Chang, S.P. Pushpakanthan and Paquito Gonzalez.
‘The Young Subcontinent’ project will showcase the works of 24 young artists from across the South Asian subcontinent. Well-known artists Kabi Raj Lama, Kishor Kayastha and Mekh Limbu will be participating in the project from Nepal; S.P. Pushpakanthan, Sussiman Nirmalavassan, Isuru Kumarasinghe and Halik Aziz come from Sri Lanka; Jeanno Gaussi, Mariam Ghani and Zainab Haidary take part from Afghanistan; and Farzana Urmi arrives from Bangladesh. These artists have worked through the year to create a diverse range of visual artworks they will display here. Their work is also expected to respond to the idea of the subcontinent, the nations that constitute it, their socio-political and cultural conditions, and their shared histories.
‘A Tale of Two Cities’
‘A Tale of Two Cities’ facilitates established artists of India and Sri Lanka to engage in an investigative and research-based art-making process, together re-looking the socio-cultural and historical dynamics of two cities, Varanasi and Anuradhapura. The project hopes to provide an opportunity for artists to connect from both countries and share their interests in understanding each city in its historical as well as contemporary contexts, which would reveal new possibilities to work on their art. This project will involve five reputed artists from Sri Lanka, namely, Jagath Weerasinghe, Anoli Perera, Pala Pothupitiya, Pradeep Chandrasiri and Bandu Manamperi.
‘Lucid Dreams’ will be a curated collection of live performances by national and international artists that blurs the lines between visual and performing arts to create an immersive space for audience engagement.
Artists will present both long and short duration live works over the course of eight to nine right from the opening day of the festival. These will be unchoreographed, unique pieces composed live and in situ by each artist. Germany’s Lisa Stertz, France’s Uriel Barthelemi, Italy’s Virginia Zanetti and Bangladesh’s Yasmin Jahan Nupur will be seen performing for this project.
‘Open Site’
‘Open Site’ will bring international street artists to the public spaces of Goa. It is an attempt towards dissolving boundaries — between nations, States and, even more importantly, between people and art. The project aims to make an intervention that gently provokes the public to imagine their lives in a broader socio-political domain. International street artists such as Roa, a muralist from Belgium; Escif, a graffiti artist from Spain; and NeMo, a street artist from Italy, will use Goa as their canvas to reach out to larger audiences through their thought-provoking pieces.
‘Satrangi’
‘Satrangi’ is an experimental dance project that will showcase six dancers from across the world who pursue different techniques and styles but come together to explore various vocabularies through a collaborative piece. The project has been designed with the vision to promote sharing and appreciation across the cultures. The idea is to break the invisible barrier across various styles and bring performers who are otherwise competitors together as a team to work on a phenomenal dance routine. International artists such as Billy Chang, Alesandra Seutin and Subhash Viman will be seen performing a dance routine, and Eugene Skeet will help compose music for the project.
‘Caravaan – The Gypsy Trail’, is a project that endeavours to fuse these individually popular and flamboyant folk traditions showcasing Spanish flamenco artists (guitar and percussion) such as Jose Bolita, Paquito Gonzalez and Osam Ezzeldin. This will be a musical exploration of that ancient link between these two traditions, designed around the theme of a people in search of new lands and the breaking of all boundaries.
“The international artists represented at the festival bring a diverse range of practices and conversations to the table. Instead of simply showcasing arts from around the world, our international projects involve these artists by truly engaging with our unique cultural context of the subcontinent,” said Ms. Preeta Singh, festival director.
SAF will be a multi-disciplinary arts event that will celebrate diversity in art with a special focus on music, dance, theatre, crafts, visual arts, culinary arts and photography. It will be the first edition in a long-term cultural project that hopes to affect positive change in the arts in India on a large scale, says Ms. Singh.
