The great Goan culture fest

VISUAL ARTS

The Sacred Everyday (15-22 December)

Influenced by several faiths and art traditions, religious iconography has been recycled in complex and aesthetic ways. With a lot to be said on the subject, cultural theorist Ranjit Hoskote offers us a perspective through The Sacred Everyday: Embracing The Risk Of Difference. It has over 200 works sourced from artists, archives, foundations and galleries across India. Hoskote explains, “The exhibition cuts across the conventional and often misleading boundaries between modernist and folk, popular and elite, contemporary and traditional." It shows how various belief systems have intersected and incorporated one another’s imagery and practices. Hoskote adds, “The Sacred Everyday proceeds from very strong political convictions—from a belief that religious imagination in India has for centuries been abundantly confluential—nourished by plural traditions."

THEATRE

Walk Back To Look (15-16 December)

In its previous editions, the festival has commemorated the architecture and the great Goan outdoors, and this time you can experience it through Walk Back To Look. Theatre practitioner and innovator Anjua Ghosalkar’s work focuses on oral histories and undocumented narratives. Treating the outdoors as its stage, Walk Back To Look is expected to draw on the energy of the outdoors and respond to their rhythms. Stillness, walking and listening are important aspects of this theatre piece with minimal dialogue through handwritten notes and placards.

MUSIC

Revolutions Per Minute (15-22 December)

Tabla soloist Aneesh Pradhan curates the music of women and men from Goan families who became celebrated musicians after 1858. As the power of the royal courts declined under the British Empire, so did the patronage. Consequentially, the centres of music production moved to Mumbai. In Revolutions Per Minute: Early Hindustani Music Recordings By Goan Musicians, Pradhan traces the migration of musicians (such as Devdasis from Goa). Collaborating with Suresh Chandvankar (honorary secretary of the Society of Indian Record Collectors known for his substantial collection of gramophone records) and exhibition designer Pushkar Thakur, Pradhan showcases the legacy of these migrant musicians and their careers as performers for the gramophone industry.

The Serendipity Arts Festival is on from 15-22 December in Goa. For details, visit

Serendipityartsfestival.com.