Casting a spotlight on Indian arts and culture since 2009, the Peabody Essex Museum once again offers a diverse weekend of activities on April 5th and 6th for the Sensational India! Festival.
The festival celebrates an unparalleled 200-year legacy of cultural exchange with India presented as a vibrant array of dance and music performances, art-making activities, and the popular Bollywood Dance Party.
On Saturday, April 5th at 9 pm, DJ Yogz and DJ D-Xtreme of Boston Sound and Light Company will transform PEM’s Atrium into a dazzling nightclub by spinning the latest Bollywood, Bhangra, and Western re-mixed music. Previous attendees were still talking about last year’s event for months afterward.
While the Bollywood Dance Party is indeed the highlight of the event, there are many, many activities to attract visitors from throughout New England. For example, take Rama Vaidyanathan, awarded the title of “Jewel of India” by the Government of Sri Lanka; she is one of the leading exponents of Bharatanatyam, a popular form of classical dance. At noon on April 5th in the Atrium, she will present a specifically commissioned repertory to highlight the theme of design in Indian classical dance, accompanied by live music.
Directly following at 1 pm in the Morse Auditorium, PEM’s Curator of Indian and South Asian Art Sona Datta will discuss the inception of modernism in Indian art, focusing on the PEM’s collection and the work of Jamini Roy, the subject of Datta’s 2010 book, Urban Patua.
Looking at one of the events for Sunday, April 6th, at 2:30 pm in the Morse Auditorium, Piotr Adamczyk of Google’s Art Project will discuss the extraordinary program that puts the best art collections of the world on the Web. Thanks to this effort, people can now view 30,000 works of art from more than 150 museums without leaving their house. Adamczyk will specifically focus on work in India, including the recently launched Archaeological Survey of India, which seeks to protect the cultural heritage of the nation.
As with any PEM event, there will of course be story time and interactive opportunities throughout the weekend from which children can learn and be entertained.
More details on the full schedule for Saturday, April 5th and Sunday, April 6th can be found on the PEM website.
