Performances

Manya Sekar, who came to Auroville in her teens, will soon start pursuing her higher education at Oberlin College in the USA. Here she talks about her experience in Auroville.

The Auroville Visitors Centre is Auroville’s reception and information disseminating centre for the often thousands of tourists and visitors coming to Auroville daily.

Krishna Devanandan has a background as a dancer, cultural event organiser and teacher of Tai Chi. She helped organise the Auroville Film Festivals and managed the Auroville Art Service from its inception in 2012 until 2023, when the Auroville Foundation appointed new executives.

On 15 and 16 February, the Auroville Choir, conducted by Nuria, presented songs composed by Ola Gjeilo, Elaine Hagenberg, James Eakin, Eric Whitacre, Jacob Narverud, Don Macdonald, Christopher Tin and Jake Runestad.

In the heart of Auroville’s The Learning Community’s (TLC) base camp, where the gentle whispers of the wind were rustling along with the vibrant hum of creativity, a humble spectacle unfolded during the sacred week of Auroville’s Birthday.

As usual, February has experienced a plethora of cultural and other events. These included performances by the Auroville Choir, an international conference on the revival and promotion of Sanskrit, a four day gathering in Unity Pavilion entitled Toward a Collective Awakening: Experiments in Evolution conceived as a follow-up to the Summit held in Auroville in February 2023 to facilitate consciousness change at a collective, The Auroville Festival – a weeklong festival including discussions on diverse topics and daily cultural performances – the Shakti Kumbh event in Unity Pavilion entitled Regenerative Renaissance of Mother India: Revitalising Bharata Shakti, three conferences on the relationship between spiritual and social life organised by the Pavillon de France, yoga activities, chanting and sound meditation in the Matrimandir Amphitheatre, a chanting and bhajan performance at SAWCHU, and a week of events in Mother’s Flower Garden.

Centre d’Art, Monday, three o’clock in the afternoon. About fifteen people are working on the photograph of the Auroville banyan tree which is spread out over seven metres in front of the large picture window.

Through this process, people who had known the Banyan for 30 years or more experienced it in a new way. As an artist, it’s interesting for me to see this happening in Auroville with people who have such an intimate relationship with the tree.

Auroville is a place of experimentation where the new can emerge and ‘something else’ can flourish. On January 19 and 20, in CRIPA, 70 children from Auroville schools, including Deepam school for children with disabilities and Auroville outreach schools, performed a one-of-a-kind co-creation titled ‘Every Soul is Unique’.

At a time of constant communal agitation, a little jewel of an evening slipped through and gave viewers an inspired taste of Sri Aurobindo’s creative offering.

On August 15th, 16th, and 17th, the illuminated fountain-pond at the Matrimandir Gardens was once again converted into a stage for a theatre presentation of ‘Usha and the Dawns to Come’.

The 15th August is always a special day in Auroville, but this 15th was particularly so as it marked the 150th anniversary of Sri Aurobindo’s birth and 75 years of India’s independence.

On February 19th, a remarkable performance took place at the Sri Aurobindo Auditorium of Bharat Nivas. Inspired by the poem ‘Is this the end?’

In this month’s installment of our regular column about Auroville’s neighbours, we meet Rashmi Gandaki, who has been living next to Auroville for the last six years.

Savithiri was born and raised in the neighbouring village of Edaiyanchavadi. Growing up, her life entwined her two passions: the Indian classical dance form Bharat Natyam; and the Auroville village outreach project Thamarai.

‘Message in a Bottle’ was an inspiring, well produced community play and a testament to the creative juices flowing in Auroville. Above all, it was great fun with a street smart kick at times.

As an arts institute that attracts artists and performers from around the world, one that is itself engaged in producing its own radical body of performative work, we are fortunate to have Adishakti in our neighbourhood.

The Journey of Auroville festival, a project under the special grants from the Government of India for Auroville’s 50th anniversary, was most recently held in Kolkata (earlier called Calcutta) from 28 to 31 January 2019.

March 30th saw an unusual theatre production, an English adaptation of seven short Tamil stories by the late renowned writer, R Chudamani. The Madras Players, Chennai’s acclaimed English theatre group, presented the 90 minute-long production as a seamless narrative of intimate peeks into the lives of orthodox urban middle class Tamils.

Bhu was a testimony to Auroville’s potential in bringing together diverse groups of people for synergetic collaborations. Conceived by Phillipe Pelen and Moucazambo Thierry of the visiting French theatre company “Les Porteurs d’eau,” Bhu drew its inspiration chiefly from conversations between the choreographers and Barbara of Ritam, Auroville and the work of Kalarigram, a Kalaripayattu institute in the vicinity of Auroville.

The month of February is culture month par excellence. Auroville Today selected three performances and one exhibition for a brief review - acknowledging that many other events deserved to be reviewed as well.

The month of February is culture month par excellence. Auroville Today selected three performances and one exhibition for a brief review - acknowledging that many other events deserved to be reviewed as well.

The month of February is culture month par excellence. Auroville Today selected three performances and one exhibition for a brief review - acknowledging that many other events deserved to be reviewed as well.

In conversation, the brothers are a force of high energy and passion for their craft. They finish each other’s sentences, spark each other into tangents and backstories, and articulate each other’s feelings.

On two successive evenings in March the combined Auroville adult and youth choirs – 78 singers in all – accompanied by an instrumental ensemble presented a collection of songs from The Peacemakers at the Sri Aurobindo Auditorium in Bharat Nivas.

On March 1st, 2015, the Auroville Festival in Chennai was launched at the ITC Grand Chola by the Governor of Tamil Nadu, His Excellency Dr. K.

On the weekend of Mother’s birthday, February 21-22, the Puducherry Village Heritage Festival was held in the neighbouring village of Alankuppam.

The story of the Tsunamika doll is well-known to Aurovilians and friends of Auroville. The Tsunamika came from Auroville’s Upasana design and garment unit when the people involved felt moved to help alleviate the tragedy of the December 2004 tsunami.

Dubbed a ‘Laboratory for Theatre Arts and Research’, Adhishakti , an experimental theatre company located near Auroville, pushes boundaries and provokes through its work, whilst being relevant to contemporary audiences in India.