Five reasons why Serendipity Arts Festival could be a game-changer in Goa's cultural calendar

One of the highlights of the festival. Living Traditions, a one-of-a-kind Hindustani classical music concert, was curated by Shubha Mudgal and executed to perfection by Murad Ali, Kaushiki Chakraborty and Mohammed Akram.

This stellar musical performance would be remembered not only for its recreation of archival recordings but also for the costumes of the artists specially designed by Rohit Bal keeping in mind the traditional garments worn by some of the first court musicians.

Serendipity Arts Festival marked another first- that of being a disabled-friendly arts festival. To achieve its aim of being inclusive and accessible for all, the festival partnered with Siddhant Shah to create a tactile experiential program called SENSES.

The main aim of the SENSES program is to make the event, spaces and its artworks more welcoming and accessible to the visually impaired visitors along with others with special need, so that one goes back with a fulfilling experience.

Tactile maps, braille books, tactile reproductions of art works on display, tactile and braille equipped signage are all a part of this. The tactile products essentially enable everyone to understand the various aspects of the art-works through multiple senses.

Curated by theatre veterans, Lillete Dubey and Anuradha Kapoor and conceptualized and produced by renowned theatre director Abhilash Pillai, 'Talatum' is a contemporary adaptation of Shakespeare’s Tempest.

Performed using circus and other subaltern performance forms it goes beyond the existing structures that exist in drama and aims to provoke inclusive discourse amongst audiences.

With the circus being a dying art in India, Serendipity Arts Festival is looking to revive the circus and give it the artistic importance that it needs.

Curated by Prashant Panjiar, The Way We Were is a fitting tribute to the city, exhibiting extraordinary portraits taken by Souza and Paul, who were the official photographers of the colonial state in the 20th century.

There would be no better way to learn about the history of Goa if not through these archive of photographs.