A multi-arts festival in memory of Vikram Sarabhai, considered the father of the country's space programme is set to begin here with the theme of displacement.
"More and more people in India and elsewhere are getting displaced and dispossessed due to circumstances outside their control," says danseuse Mallika Sarabhai who is co-director of the Darpana Academy of Performing Arts, which organises the festival each year.
"Industrialisation, mining, big dams, climate change, economic and political reasons lead massive groups of humanity to lose their homes and roots. UNHCR figures show increasingly wider swathes of humanity being uprooted and usually not finding proper rehabilitation," she says.
The 38th Vikram Sarabhai Festival is scheduled to be held in Delhi for three days beginning March 10. It is being organised by Tata Sons with support from United Nations High Commission for Refugees (UNHCR).
The idea of the festival was born a few years after his tragic and early death in 1971.
"He was a great lover of the arts, and a connoisseur. It was felt that the best way to remember and pay homage to him would be to have a yearly multi- arts festival in his home town, Ahmadabad," Sarabhai said.
The event, which began in 1974 in the Tagore Hall till 1994, the festival highlighted major national and international artists like Prabha Atre, Bhimsen Joshi, The Battery Dance Company, Gruppa from Sweden, Pratap Sharma and Alyque Padamsee and Darpana's own new productions.
The first production "LDR" has been conceptualised choreographed and directed by Revanta Sarabhai and performed by her and Sarathy Korwar who has also produced the original soundscape and music.
"Through dance and poetry Revanta explores the myriad complexities and displacement brought on by long distance relationships," says Mallika.
On the second day is a production titled "Unearthed" directed by Yadavan Chandran and Mallika Sarabhai. Mallika with Palanivelu, Murali Nair, Padmakumar, Pinakin Thaker, Sonal Solanki, Manikandan, Pooja Purohit and Priyanka Raja are the performers.
Both Mallika and Yadavan create a visually spectacular piece of physical theatre with an adaptation of a Gabriel Garcia Marquez short story by Gowri Ramnarayan.
