Soma- Festival of Arts - a joyous convergence of rich craft traditions, performing arts

More than 100 stalls from Pan India displayed items such as art and crafts, organic foods

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: SOMA- Festival for the Arts- hosted by the Shankara Foundation started on 10 February and ended on 12th of this month.

The event acknowledged the joyous convergence of rich craft traditions, performing arts, exuberant creativity and social consciousness. More than 100 stalls from Pan India displayed items such as art n crafts, organic foods, , jewellery, stools, pickles, traditional foods of Karnataka and many more. Performances were held by artist Sathynarayana Raju.

S N Sethuram performed the Gati Kannada. A skit was set up in an urban setting, Vasu Dixit with his Rock Fusion with Rukinmi Vijatkumar’s ‘Devi and Abducted’ Classical dance performance enthralled the audience. Bangalore Theatre Ensemble (BTE) performed the ‘Chekov to Champagne’ filled the air with excitement. Abhimanyu Bhupathi from BTE has been in the theatre industry for 16 years. He performs with a group of 12 artists.

He said, "The play is based on the short stories written by Anton Chekov, the skit is set up in middleclass Russian times and is an introspection into Chekov’s experiences and observations.” Shilpa Belavadi, cofounder of Indy Verna, a brand offering Indian women explore sophisticated and chic office wear imbibed in Indian roots, pan India.

“I used to be a fashion consultant until I realised the gap in the fashion industry when it comes to professional wear. This gave birth to Indy Varna, we travelled to states like Bihar, Orissa, Karnataka, West Bengal and Hyderabad and got varieties of fabrics from weavers, we stayed with them and got these personalised products,” Shilpa said.

Tots and moms, an organic store offering tasty millet cookies and preservative-free baby foods, was also at the festival. Founder Kavitha said, "I am very delighted to meet so many people and share my love for organic and preservative-free food. We recently got featured in Fit Tubber’s videos on youtube for our tasty cookies and milletbased snacks.”

Continuing she said, "We have something for everyone who is into being healthy.” The festival saw many workshops and seminars focussing on creating awareness about the richness of traditional art and crafts.