The SA, India Shared History experience
23 August 2010
Shared History: The Indian Experience Festival brings the sights, sounds and tastes of the sub-continent to South Africa. And this year it will be celebrating the 150th anniversary of the arrival of the first Indians in the country.
Locals and visitors can expect a sizzling line-up of Indian contemporary and classical music, dance, theatre, visual art, film, food and literature at this year's festival.
The festival will showcase the finest that Indian culture has to offer with performances in Cape Town, Durban, Johannesburg, Pietermaritzburg and Pretoria from 20 August until 30 September.
The programme also provides an avenue for dialogue and collaborative exchanges between Indian and South African musicians, writers, dancers and visual artists.
"The Shared History Festival is a unique celebration of plurality and the common heritage of India and South Africa," Indian High Commissioner Virendra Gupta said at
the press launch of this year's festival. "Over the years it has become a platform to showcase the best music, theatre, dance, film food and visual arts from India."
Shared History kicks off at the Turbine Hall in Newtown, Johannesburg on 3 September, when the Midival Punditz, an Indian fusion group consisting of Delhi-based musicians Gaurav Raina and Tapan Raj, will get the Festival off to a rocking start. They can be seen again at the trendy Zouk Lounge and bar in Sandton, Johannesburg on 4 September.
Festival highlights
Festival highlights include:
Mrigya, fusing blues, funk, folk, Latin, rock and jazz with Indian classical music, will present their re-contextualised Indian rhythms and melodies at the Johannesburg Arts Alive Festival's annual Jazz on the Lake at Zoo Lake on September. They will also appear at Durban City Hall on 4 September, at the Gandhi Hall in Lenasia on 6 September, and at the Rendezvous, State Theatre in
Pretoria on 7 September.
Playwriter Ronnie Govender's At the Edge and other Cato Manor Stories will be presented at The Playhouse Company in Durban from 8 to 12 September and at Johannesburg's Market Theatre from 16 to 26 September, while Lahnee's Pleasure will run at the Artscape Theatre Complex in Cape Town from 14 to 28 August.
Indian maestro U Shrinivas, known as "Mandolin Shrinivas" for his mastery of the mandolin, will perform with the Kwazulu-Natal Philharmonic Orchestra at Durban City Hall on 22 September, at the Joseph Stone Auditorium in Cape Town on 24 September, and with the Johannesburg Philharmonic Orchestra at the Linder on 26 September.
World-renowned Mohiniyattam dancers Vijaylakshmi and Bharti Shvaji's Swan Lake in Mohiniyattam style (a traditional South Indian dance form of Kerala) will run at the Dance Factory in Newtown, Johannesburg from 8 to 12 September, while the Tribhangi Dance
Theatre's commissioned production From the Canefields to Freedom will run at the same venue from 14 to 16 September.
"Where the Streets have No Name", a unique collaboration between Indian artists and street children, runs at the Durban Art Gallery from 20 August to 5 September and at the Art and Craft design Centre in Sandton, Johannesburg from 10 to 30 September.
A Film Retrospective (Johannesburg only) and an "In Conversation..." with movie star Rishi Kapoor discussing the Bollywood genre takes place at Suncoast Cinemas, Durban on 17 September and at Nu Metro cinemas, Montecasino, Johannesburg on 19 September.
The Wellbeing Experience, featuring 14 yoga and Ayurvedic disciplines, takes place at Emmarentia Botanical Gardens, Johannesburg on 19 September. Includes lectures on Indian Ayurvedic practices, organic and Ayurvedic food stalls, yoga workshops, guided meditations and music performances. Day tickets: R100 per
adult.
The "Words on Water: India and South Africa in Conversation" Literary Festival takes place at the University of the Western Cape, Cape Town from 20 to 21 September, and at the Turbine Hall in Newtown, Johannesburg from 24 to 25 September.
The Shared History Festival is sponsored by the City of Johannesburg, Arts Alive, eThekwini Municipality, First National Bank (FNB), Jet Airways, Jindal, ICCR and Incredible India.
Associate sponsors are: ACSA, Tata Africa, Dunlop, Rosyblue, Bank of Baroda and KGK and the media partners are SABC TV2 Eastern Mosaic, Sunday Times, Zee TV, Lotus FM and Sutra Magazine.
Bookings can be made via Computicket.
SAinfo reporter
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