Come enjoy the art and culture of Akshara throughout the month of October with the Akshara Rasa Festival. Shows will take place every weekend throughout October.
This year, Akshara is hosting their Rasa Performing India-Inspired Arts Festival virtually for the public to enjoy throughout October. Each weekend in October will feature a lineup of Indian-inspired multi-arts performances which can be viewed either on Akshara’s Facebook or YouTube channel.
Akshara pulls inspiration to work across a range of artistic genres from the concept of “Total Theater” in the Natyashastra, or the ancient Indian treatise on dramaturgy. Throughout the centuries, there has been a rich and vibrant tradition of music, dance, movement, spoken word, poetry, and visual arts that all work together to create an aesthetic experience for the audience. With the Rasa Festival moving virtually, viewers will be able to experience all of these wonderful works in a safe space.
“This year, so much is different around us, yet the process of making art and its presentation has had to adapt, like everything else. We have had to migrate to virtual platforms to reach our audiences. However, instead of simply replicating our typical format of in-person concerts, exhibitions, and other participatory events online, this year we invited the artists to create shorter experimental works, and they have specially created wonderful original works for our festival.” Akshara’s Artist Director Sreyashi Dey shares.
Each event will be available on the Akshara Facebook and YouTube channel from 11am to noon. The scheduled lineup is as follows.
Weekend 1
Thursday 10/1
Mandali: India and the World
Group art exhibition, in partnership with Ann Arbor District Library
Saturday 10/3
Sreyashi Dey: Dance
Amie Maciszewski: Music
Kohal Das: Dance
Zilka Joseph and Veena Kulkarni-Rankin: Poetry and Piano
Nina Hauser: Illustrated Talk on Travel-Photography-Art
Sunday 10/4
Anu Naimapally: Dance
Stories from Cocoons: Group Art Exhibition
Weekend 2
Saturday 10/10
Pallabi Chakraborty: Dance
Charlee Brodsky, Sreyashi Dey and Zilka Joseph: Photography-Dance-Poetry
Somdatta Chakraborty: Music
Pika Ghosh: Illustrated Art History Talk
Rakae/Mughal-e-Funk: Music
Sunday 10/11
Kasi Aysola: Dance
Uday Hajra: Photography
Sreyashi Dey: Dance
Sunita Shanker: Fashion Design and Craft Traditions
Bono Sen: Art & Social change
Weekend 3
Saturday 10/17
Priyadarshini Ghosh: Dance
Sunita Shanker: Fashion Design and Craft Traditions
Sreyashi Dey: Dance
Sudeshna Basu & Manjula Kumar: Rabindrasangeet and Spoken Word
Sunday 10/18
Anurekha Ghosh: Dance
Paroma Chatterjee: Illustrated Art History Talk
Poly Varghese: Mohan Veena Music and Poetry
Manasi Joshi-Singh: Music
Sumita Chakraborty: Poetry
Weekend 4
Saturday 10/24
Dheeman Bhattacharyya: Movement, Music, and Spoken Word
Monit Pal: Music
Sreyashi Dey: Dance
Sunita Shanker: Fashion Design & Craft Traditions
Zilka Joseph: Poetry
Sunday 10/25
Ravi Naimpally: Music
Aniruddha Sanyal: Film & Music
Kohal Das: Dance
Charlee Brodsky, Sreyashi Dey & Zilka Joseph: Photography-Dance-Poetry
Deepak Paramashivan: Music
