The Rasa Festival Will Take Place Virtually in Fall 2020

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

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