Curtain Raiser: Serendipity Arts Festival To Be Held In Goa (December 15-23)

Every year, December 15 marks the date when performing arts take over the ‘city that never gets flooded’ (that’s what Panjim literally means). For two weeks, Goa’s capital city turns into an extended stage, art gallery and kitchen where performing and culinary artists converge to take the baton of art, tradition and culture forward.

In its sixth edition, this year, Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF) will showcase 128 projects (not including workshops and talks), 12 of which are collaborative in nature, 36 special projects and four initiatives of Serendipity Arts Foundation.

Curated by domain experts, SAF schedule is divided into six broader disciplines of Dance, Visual Arts, Music, Culinary Arts, Theatre, and Craft, with a brilliant lineup of artists including an evening with tabla maestro Zakir Hussain.

Curators: The Festival has 10 expert curators this year across the six disciplines.

Music: Curated by Bickram Ghosh, one of India’s greatest classical tabla players and a Grammy Award nominee, and Ricky Kej, an internationally renowned music composer and environmentalist, with three Grammy Awards to his credit.

Dance: Curated by Mayuri Upadhya, head of Bengaluru-based Nritarutya, and Geeta Chandran, a leading Indian classical dancer.

Visual Arts: New Delhi-based Vidya Shivadas and programme director at Space Studio, Baroda, Veeranganakumari Solanki.

Craft: Bengaluru-based multidisciplinary designer, educator and entrepreneur Sandeep Kumar Sangaru, and art historian Anjana Somany.

Theatre: Artistic director and noted theatre personality Quasar Thakore Padamsee

Culinary Arts: Chef Thomas Zacharias and The Locavore Team.

Workshops: Songwriting masterclass with Lonnie Park; Body Percussion Workshop with Keith “WildChild” Middleton; The Rhythm in Nothingness, a workshop that combines music and movement; join Chef Abhishek Deshmane in a culinary exploration of Red Snapper Ceviche and Sasam Salad; Weaving on Loin Loom with Woven Threads, a design initiative by the indigenous people of Nagaland to craft innovative high-end loin loom textiles using sustainable materials and zero-waste-manufacturing processes; Young at Art: Children’s programming by ThinkArts, among several others.

Exhibitions & Installations: Synaesthetic Notations – Discover how sound shapes the reading and deciphering of images;

Turning: On Field and Work – Find yourself amidst artistic projects rooted in alternative knowledge systems, materials, and practices;

Time as a Mother – Delve into the geological, poetical, and philosophical dimensions of time, as it comes to shape nature and our existence in the age of the Anthropocene;

Goa Familia: Let the Sound Linger – Step into the rhythm of Goan music through archives and family narratives;

Street Canvas: Hand-Painted Signs from India and the Dominican Republic;

Text/Matters – Engage with the history of writing and publishing around arts and culture through the archives of Marg and Art India.

Rasa and Rap: With Goa’s rap scene riding an all-time high, one of the noted projects under the Music discipline is Rasa and Rap, with rappers across India performing in different languages. Ustad Zakir Hussain will also be performing in ‘An Evening of Serendipity – with Zakir Hussain’, a must-visit for classical music connoisseurs.

Dance: Rasa Leela from Manipur in ‘Manipuri Ras’ and literature lovers can appreciate an Indian classical music-dance-theatre take on the classic novel Don Quixote.

Bamboo & Puppetry: Bamboo: A Way of Life is project that allows one to appreciate the Northeast Indian tradition of living with bamboo. In Crafted Expressions: Embodied Traditions in the Indian Performing Arts, visitors can appreciate the craftsmanship behind puppetry and costume-making.

Feni Tasting & Goan food: Visitors can indulge in sampling delicious feni while understanding the artisanal feni-making process through a feni distillery set up by Goa’s very own ‘feni dotor’ Hansel Vaz. There are numerous Goa-centric programmes featuring local cuisine, one of which is a ‘Culinary Workshops: Goan cooking’ session.

Senses 6.0: India’s first-ever accessible and inclusive programme curated for people with special needs specifically for a multidisciplinary arts festival.

Accessibility for people with special needs: “Facilities like ramps, tactile braille artworks, braille guides, sign language experts, inclusive outreach programmes and on-ground accessibility team, are provided at the Festival. We also strive to make our venues as wheelchair-accessible as possible,” says Smriti Rajgarhia, the Director of the Serendipity Arts Foundation and the Serendipity Arts Festival.

Registration & Fee: The Festival is free to all visitors upon registration. However, 42 projects have a nominal registration fee of Rs.99 per head due to limited seating.

Venues: SAF 2023 will be conducted across 13 venues — Art Park (13 events), Excise Building (5 events), Old GMC Complex (50 events), ESG complex (9 events), Santa Monica jetty (1 event), Old PWD complex (5 events), Multi-level parking (2 events), Samba Square, The Arena at Nagalli Hills Ground (13 events), Promenade, Dinanath Mangeshkar Kala Mandir (8 events), Azad Maidan (1 event) and across Panaji (1 event).

Tips: Finding parking space can be challenging, look for traffic advisory. Carry your photo id and SAF pass for entry. Check the SAF website for updated program schedule and timings