Russia and Ukraine may not be the best of friends. However, on a stage far away, an Aurovilian from Russia and an Aurovilian from Ukraine declared their friendship before embarking on a song in unison, in an example of the Aurovilian ideal of human unity.
The setting was the second edition of the Auroville Singing Festival 2014 held this last weekend at Auroville, under the theme, ‘one community one family’.
With around 220 participants and close to 1000 people attending both days of the event, the performances were a mix of professional and singalongs.
The youngest participant was six years old, while the oldest was around 70. There were songs in English, Tamil, Sanskrit, French, Hebrew, Portuguese, Korean, Chinese, Spanish and other languages, representing 30 different countries.
A highlight of the festival was the performance by students with special needs of the Deepam school. Having practised for six months, they gave their best.
The children’s choir led by Aurovilian Shakti warmed the hearts of the audience. They included the poem ‘Who’ by Sri Aurobindo and the Gayatri Mantra in their performance. While last year’s edition had singing based on participants’ ethnicity or nationality, this year, the focus was on ‘family’, with family being a group brought together by a common link, not necessarily being biological ties. The core idea of inclusive participation of all and ‘singalong’ was maintained for this year’s edition too, said organisers Minseon and Ananda.
“The event was an attempt at community exchange. We had this song- ‘Endless Love’-which was sung by a Chinese participant in Korean, and a Korean singer in Chinese. Another song ‘Go Hyang Ui Pom’ was sung in Japanese, Korean and Chinese,” said Ms. Minseon.
“This year’s edition succeeded in involving a lot more teenagers and young people,” said Mr. Ananda. “The event has served the role of an incubator and has had a snowballing effect. Some of the participants have expressed an interest to start their own concert programmes. While this is good, we must keep a balance between a collective event such as this and smaller group events.
An event like this helps the participation of every citizen and pulls back groups which may be on the verge of collapsing,” he said.
The musical arrangement and support by Shakti and Rolf helped improve the show a great deal, said Minseon and Ananda.
The grand finale came with ‘Do it now’- the anthem on climate change, in which everyone joined in with its catchy tune and simple lyrics.
