BEYOND SERENDIPITY

Serendipity Arts Foundation participated for the first time at India Art Fair in 2019, taking place between January 31 – February 3, with the booth showcasing a series of screens with excerpts of performance pieces.

Body / Movement / Space: Investigations at Serendipity Arts Festival 2018

At Serendipity Arts Festival (SAF), we were intrigued with the continued blurring of boundaries between dance and theatre, between the performative, the visual and the sonic. Both in the performing arts and performance arts, the body is a central theme. The body envelopes space, and is enveloped by space in a process of creative cross-fertilization that provokes a discourse between mediated public perceptions of the human body, theatre, dance and contemporary reality. Artists engaging with the body, and the corresponding architectural spaces where the body is investigated, are engendering innovative and challenging artworks that stimulate new relationships between art and anatomy. The moving body, whether it is performance/performing arts, remained constant, withstanding the challenges of site while responding to it as well. Here, we presented viewers with a series of excerpts of commissioned pieces showcased at SAF, and those that adapted to specific spaces.

These pieces had the capacity to include all types of collaborators, influencers, and technicians in order to create structured and/or improvisational works that have a unique temporal quality, one where specific actions are enacted – seen or unseen – never to be experienced in the same way again. This is in contrast to the definability and recreation inherent in the performing arts, which also go through shifts given the site-specific nature of the venues allocated to them.

Though performing and performance art overlap in significant ways, it is important to consider them differently. How do these moving bodies negotiate site? What makes a performance site specific? What are the challenges faced by proscenium vs. non-proscenium spaces? These are questions we don’t necessarily have ready answers for, but we are eager to keep a dialogue going, and to continue engaging with these ideas in the spirit of experimentation and learning.

Images from the SAF booth at India Art Fair 2019