AAW #208

Abhivyakti: The City Arts Project is back with its 2nd Edition to give Ahmedabad a generous dose of artful events across the domains of theatre, dance, music and visual arts. Abhivyakti is a one-of-a-kind arts event that celebrates and showcases the young and original artistic talent from Ahmedabad. The 17-day long fiesta starts today, April 26 and will continue till May 12. The events shall happen at two venues on the either side of Sabarmati, Dinesh hall on Ashram road being one and other the auditorium of Bhavans College in Khanpur.

The blooming Open Mic culture in the city is lending platform to a lot of unexpressed talent of the city. This week the Unread Open Mic is providing space for poets, stand up comedians and storytellers to come up and perform.

People looking for some soothing tunes to enjoy this weekend should drop down to Queens of Melody concert. The cross-cultural show featuring musician Éléonore Fourniau, Nandini Shankar and Abhishek Mishra will collaboratively introduce us to Turkish, Kurdistani and Indian melodies. The Swarotsav music festival, a celebration of Gujarati language, music and culture is featuring reputed performers and creators of Gujarat in its three day schedule. The star-studded line-up features eminent personalities from film, music as well as literature – namely  Jigardan Gadhvi, Kinjal Dave, Kirtidan Gadhvi, Bhoomi Trivedi, Kajal Oza Vaidya and Jay Vasavada.

The Short Film club of Shamiana is back again with a marathon of movie screenings. Short films with global significance that somehow touches the broader perspective of the real society like Guy Nattiv’s Skin, Katia Benrath’s Watu Wote: All of Us and James Everett’s Dreaming of Peggy Lee will be a part of the feature list.  Since we are talking about films, we thought movie buffs of Ahmedabad would also be interested in the Lets Talk Meetup, where Janki Bodiwala, Devarshi Shah and Hrutul Patel, which will highlight the hidden opportunities in Gujarati film industry and give an idea to the audience on how they can earn a break into one of the films.

Young bibliophile Janvi Sonaiya is inviting fellow literature lovers to discuss Becoming, a memoir of former USA First Lady Michelle Obama. The discussion will not only focus on the literature but will also have a fun-filled story writing activity for the audience.

An experimental Gujarati play drafted and directed by budding playwright Harsh Shodhan is also something that theatre enthusiasts should look forward to. Ek Sthayi Musafar is a self introspecting drama narrated through the perspective of a traveller.  Come and visit the second largest lake of the city, Kankaria and an almost a 70-year-old Zoo with photographer Ashish Mehta. The heritage enthusiast will allow and assist its audience in taking picturesque glimpses of the premises during the Photowalk.

Foundation Course Students of Kanoria Centre for Arts will exhibit their course learnings visually during the Annual Exhibition. Around 30 young artists will exhibit varied artworks during this three-day long art display.

The 208th Ahmedabad Art Weekly’s is dedicated to Gandhian polyglot Swami Anand, the man who inspired Mahatma Gandhi to write his autobiography ‘The Story of My Experiments with Truth’. Swami was proficient in Gujarati, Marathi, Sanskrit, Hindi, Urdu and English languages and was manager for Gandhi’s publications Navajivan and Young India.  Born in Wadhwan in 1887 Anand later became a cleric at the Ramakrishna Mission and then worked in Marathi newspaper Kesari. He has also worked as a secretary with Sardar Vallabhai Patel. His literary achievements spread across the genres of fiction, travelogues, science, religion, nature, spirituality and society. Some of his popular works include Kulkathao, Ambavadiyun, Amaratvel, Dharthinum lun, Santona Anuj and Naghrol.