Introduction

Welcome to Serendipity Arts {Virtual}!


The 14th of December is a special day for Serendipity—we would usually be found running across venues in Panjim, coordinating, calling, commiserating, snacking on-the-go as every little element came together to form the opening of the Festival. This year we are within the four walls of our home, our fingers are tapping away, our earphones are relaying the voices of our colleagues, and all eyes are on one place—the screen. 


On 14th, we may not be offering you a quick glass of neembu pani but we are with you and with one another, gliding across different web venues—all of which want to engage with you, listen to you, speak with you. Will you meet us on the webs?  


Serendipity Arts Virtual is our co-exploration of these and many other questions raised by curators and artists. Join us for a series of internet-based programmes including interactive performances, workshops, and panel discussions. Mark your calendars till the 21st of December!

Projects

FUTURE LANDING

The form of the web portal as a virtual studio for five practitioners at a time activates itself through viewer involvement.

MY STORY | YOUR STORY | OUR STORY

Let us fondly imagine that social media could live up to the simplest of its original promises. Imagine that instead of fostering tribalism, it truly enabled us to overcome isolation and enter a limitless world of connectedness, kindling a less bounded sense of ourselves.

CREATION RE – CREATION

Four artistic projects have emerged as a response to this metaphor have rooted themselves in very different personal practice, medium and technique to suit the virtual format of the festival.

THE-BODY-IN-MOVEMENT

The-Body-in-Movement is an inter-disciplinary laboratory for thinking, making and performing. The laboratory is imagined as a workshop/ discursive space that could potentially lead to generation of new collaborative work.

GOA FAMILIA

Goa Familia attempts to locate collections relevant to the representation of Goa's past. These collections include colonial archives and personal collections, images made in a professional context that could range from photojournalism to anthropology.

PANJIM ART DISTRICT

India’s fourth public art district - the Panjim Art District, was founded in 2017, as part of St+art Goa 2017. Over the years, a diverse set of artists has used distinct stylistic approaches to create pieces inspired by their respective interpretations of the city. Spread across key buildings of the town-centre, today the Panjim Art District has a total of 14 murals each of which is in a dialogue with the unique culture and ethos of Goa in its own way.

INTRODUCTION TO INDIAN FOLK ART AND CRAFT

At Serendipity Arts Festival, over the years, we have had the honour of showcasing some of the finest craft forms from across the country. We recognize the importance of keeping these age-old art forms alive, and for these stories to be told by the artists and artisans themselves. Join us for a series of online workshops as part of Serendipity Arts Virtual with expert artisans across a range of folk arts and craft. These workshops will introduce participants to the basic of arts forms such as Patachitra, Gond, Madhubani and Phad painting among others, allowing participants to interact with the artisans and gain insight into their lives and work while understanding the historical and cultural significance of the art form, as well as the inspiration behind them.

A TASTE OF GOA

Among the many wonderful things, Goa has to offer, for all of us at SAF, food tops the list. After years of eating and drinking at some of the finest establishments in Panjim and beyond, we are very pleased to bring a series of cook-along sessions with some of our favourite dishes and cocktails for you to try out at home. We’re excited to share a scrumptious selection of dishes that we have savoured - dishes that have brought us solace (hello, Basque cheesecake from Blackmarket Goa); drinks that have given us given us many (many) happy hours (here’s looking at you, Joseph Bar!); kept us going with life-giving breakfasts (good morning, Cafe Caravela!); and always kept us coming back for more (another slice of cake, please, Cafe Bodega!). Get your aprons out, and get ready to join us for a little taste of Goa!

ACCESSIBILITY WORKSHOPS

Since its inception, Serendipity Arts Festival has made considerable and conscious efforts to make the festival as accessible as possible to a diverse community of art lovers. The current situation is only a challenge to our imagination, thus leading us to curate accessibility via digital media and platforms. Access For ALL has curated Senses Virtual, a digital platform to provide access via inclusive arts-based therapies and creative workshops focusing on mental health and diversity.

CREATION RE – CREATION WORKSHOPS

Website Creation Re – Creation workshops are a part of Creation Re/Creation curated by Kristine Michael and Chandrika Grover. Video Re-Imagination and InterconnectednessAn introduction to Puppetry and Object Theatre The participants of this workshop will be taught how to animate objects using our imagination as fuel and action as a discipline. Facilitator Varun Narain Video […]

STRETCH, BREATHE, RELAX: A WORKSHOP ON YOGA & MINDFULNESS

With this workshop, experience simple stretches that you can do at your desk or at any time of the day. Re-learn how we can change our state of mind through simple, conscious breathing exercises. Learn to relax with simple, tried, and tested methods that ancient practices like yoga, Tai chi, and similar systems that have a holistic approach to the mind and body connect.

THE PERFECT BREW: TEA WORKSHOP

What’s better than enjoying a cup of steaming tea in the winter sun? Join us for a workshop with Anamika Singh, who talks about the art of brewing the perfect cup of tea, followed by a sneak peek at how to make mulled tea. Welcome the winter with a hot cup of sunshine on standby!

MASTERCLASS WITH VERTIGO DANCE COMPANY

This new original dance piece by choreographer Noa Wertheim revolves around the individual’s inner wish to be whole whilst being challenged constantly by a fragmented reality within the personal, existential and spiritual realms of ones being.

GUIDED DRAWING

A Guided Drawing is a drawing that is easily imagined by listening to a short text that is full of imagery and ideas.

A 1001 NIGHTS IN QUARANTINE – WRITING WORKSHOPS

1001 Nights in Quarantine is a story project written by all of us. We want to grow a live tree of stories online.

THE LAST POET

A theatre of love, a city of sorrow, a people searching for their missing poet. Amitesh Grover’s “The Last Poet” is a multilayered art form with theatre, film, sound art, creative coding, digital scenography, and live performance. It is India’s first genre-bending broadcast of theatre-on-the-internet.

LOOK, HERE IS YOUR MACHINE. GET IN!

While the pandemic has forced us to rely on online platforms to reach out, conduct business, or to make art “Look, here is your machine. Get in!” is a meditation on the potentialities and limitations of internet based communication and the ever evolving understanding of the virtual. The curators invite artists and scholars to document the current moment we are living through––in particular on the intersection of society and art, and technology. Their responses will constitute a unique archive of the 269 days of the pandemic (25th of March, the first day of the lockdown to the 16th of December, the day of the project`s premiere) and its effects on the public sphere and our cultural and political life.

Nihayati Niji Baatein

I think of you sometimes. You will watch the video, (dekhna please) and you are real. I made the video and i am real. And yet, we are not fully real, i mean, not to each other. You are out there, somewhere, as i am out here, somewhere.

SERENDIPITY SOUNDSCAPES – DIL KI BAATEIN : AFFAIRS OF THE HEART IN SONG

Serendipity Soundscapes is a unique initiative by Serendipity Arts Festival. Our music curators are invited to bring together the unique sounds of the subcontinent in an extraordinary evening.

SCREENING OF ONE, ONE AND ONE

One, One & One reflects both the internal and external worlds whilst paying attention to the echo as reflected from different perspectives the piece develops the metaphoric relationship between far and near and self and the other. This performance will be live from 14th December 2020 for two weeks.

PYAARE 2020-JI

Pyaare 2020-Ji is a performance hoping to simulate the liveness of theatre, but quite certainly failing. It is an attempt to share in our collective experience of this year together with the tiny boxes of our computer screens. Pyaare Audience-ji, come. Let's be with each other for a little while.

INTRODUCING ….. ANTIGONE INTERRUPTED

Introducing… Antigone, Interrupted is a unique online event combining footage from our original stage production, scenes reimagined for the digital medium, and real-time meet-the-artist conversation. The event will give audiences an opportunity to “meet the characters” and hear from choreographer Joan Clevillé and dancer Solène Weinachter.

THE POLITICS OF INTERPRETATION OF ART AND ARCHIVES

Anuja Ghosalkar & Kai Tuchmann will moderate a discussion between Gob Squad Collective and Venkat Srinivasan (National Centre for Biological Sciences) as a culmination of the Starting Realities International workshop series on documentary theatre.

UNLOCKING MEMORY: A CONVERSATION ON GATHERING ORAL HISTORIES

With an objective of discussing some of the crucial questions that arise from the physical and intellectual components of such research, Goa Familia is facilitating a dialogue between individuals who are actively involved with gathering oral histories that find form in photographic material. The invited speakers will share insights on processes, methodologies and the complexities of interpreting memory.

CYBER THEATRE: MAKING OF THE LAST POET

Amitesh Grover, along with the cast and crew of The Last Poet, will be in conversation to open ideas and questions around the emerging genre of Cyber Theatre.

CULTURE AS PRINT (II): THE EVER-CHANGING ARCHIVE

Drawing from autonomous initiatives in English and vernaculars in the early twentieth century, such as The Modern Review, the panel will explore the print as a forum for collectivity and multiplicity, the foundations of a discursive public.

FUTURE LANDING – DRIPS, DEPARTURES AND LOSING CONTROL

In this panel discussion, the foundation team of Future Landing will discuss how these drips and departures prepare for a complete loss of control – not just for the future of the project, but also for you, the viewer and participant.

LAUNCH OF THE-BODY-IN-MOVEMENT ARCHIVE

A discussion on a laboratory which is imagined as a workshop/ discursive space that could potentially lead to generation of new collaborative work.

CULTURE AS PRINT (I): THE MODERN REVIEW AND BEYOND

The establishment and continuing journeys of publications that have served equally as foundational and kinetic forces in shaping the public sphere and promoting critical enquiries, will be the impulses explored in this discussion.

Calendar
04 DEC 2020

04 DEC 2020