One amongst the many performances that kept the audiences glued to their chairs and received a thunderous standing ovation. (Image: Instagram)
The festival that promotes talents across different art forms and genres has come to be one of the biggest art festivals in entire South-East Asia
Serendipity Arts Festival was carefully curated keeping in mind the fact that it would garner a diverse range of audiences from all over the country, there was a little something for everyone amidst a plethora of things which included, music, food, dance, theatre, art and much more. For eight straight days, the city of Panaji, Goa resonated with the lovely sights, sounds and myriad moods of the different art forms from across the entire South Asian region and as well as the globe.
The event was spread across 14+ venues with over 120+ programs and more than 1000 artists from each and every zone of the country. The festival sought to catalyse cross-cultural exchange, foster a sense of collaboration, and explore inter-disciplinarity in different art forms while trying to significantly erase regional divisions in the country. The directors and the collaborators of the festival strived and succeeded in setting up a platform that gave equal opportunities to artists, artisans, indigenous and folk-art forms, performers, and other creative practitioners from all over India and the South Asian region.
The performance segment was curated by Pt. Bickram Ghosh and Ehsaan Noorani. Theatrician Quasar Thakore Padamsee brought forth to the audience, experimental theatre combining the classics and the postmodern screenplays alongside children’s theatre in collaboration with Ranga Shankara’s “AHA! “Theatre for Children. Geeta Chandran and Mayuri Upadhya also curated a wide set of projects that had some stellar re-adaptations of Indian classics, contemporary themes and cultures.
On the other hand, the exhibition segment was curated by names like Sudarshan Shetty, Veerangana Solanki, Anjana Somany, Pramod Kumar KG, with special projects like Somewhere Ethereal by Mathieu Wothke and Terra Nullius: Excavations from Image 3.0 by Pascal Beausse and Rahaab Allana, along with Goa Familia by Lina Vincent and Akshay Mahajan were also on display.
Mr. Sunil Kant Munjal, Founder & Patron of Serendipity Arts Festival while talking about his primary inspiration to start the festival mentioned, “I had an interest in the arts for a very long time, even when we were young we would have extraordinarily talented individuals come and perform. I had a lot of exposure but the only thing that worried me was, art was becoming limited to only a few which I found to be extremely unfair because art is all around us and not only do we need to provide access to all but we also needed to figure out a way to conserve and do restoration of artforms.”
“We are also happy to announce that the arts and culture of our region will have a permanent home with THE BRIJ, which will retain the aura of the flagship festival while adding multiple layers of practice, learning and experimentation to its programs, around the year. Planned around diverse creative practices, the facility will have arts education, incubation labs, centres of cultural innovation, performance spaces, and museums at a never-before-seen scale, in an interdisciplinary manner. In effect it will be the complete ecosystem for Arts & Culture in one place,” he added.
When asked about what went into creating and curating such a magnanimous festival, Smriti Rajgarhia, Director, of Serendipity Arts Foundation and Festival, said, “I think it became as magnanimous as it is because we are extremely passionate about it. It is not something we could have done without all the support that we have gained through the years and like I always say our show is entirely run by our volunteers.”
She further added, “We were delighted to see and hear about the impact the festival has had in people’s lives and we are glad we are playing our part in spreading the magic of the arts. The festival would not have received its shape and form without the support of our curators, the artists and the contributions of the teams and our patrons. They are helping us edge towards our goal of making Panjim the cultural hub of the world.”
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