Veena Mani By Express News Service CHENNAI: As Chennai’s boundaries have expanded with the growth of the IT industry, people have slowly yet increasingly been moving to the outskirts to stay in proximity to their workplaces. Places like Shollinganallur are becoming the new residential hubs with high-rises. With little time to spare, most people end up not satiating their artistic cravings, missing musical concerts that are primarily curated at sabhas in and around the city’s cultural hub — Mylapore. Rasikapriya, a four-year-old sabha founded by a group of music enthusiasts and people working at MNCs wants to change just that. The group’s focus is to take art to people across the city. The sabha will be staging its first concert as part of the Rasikapriya Arts Festival 2020 at KC High School in OMR. “Our primary aim is to get youngsters to enjoy the arts. The best way is to organise it in a school. In this festival, children who are part of the school will be staging a play as well. We are also inviting violinists Bindu and Ambi Subramaniam who are known to the younger generation,” says Sairam, one of the trustees of the sabha, adding that the group aims to organise these concerts at unconventional and informal spaces like clubhouses and recreational spaces within residential buildings. Their model is to have memberships using which a family can attend these concerts. For certain concerts like the Rasikapriya Arts Festival, which they will be organising on February 15 and 16, the event will be ticketed. “We do not want to compromise on the quality of lighting and sound. That is why we make events ticketed. We want to concentrate on fewer events each year and make sure they are done properly,” says Sairam. For the founders of this sabha, organising events at the right time — when it would reach the audience better is important than organising festivals that are long and exhausting. “We don’t want to stick to just one kind of art. We want to experiment,” he shares. The event at KC High will have performances by Bindu and Ambi Subramaniam, a dance-drama by Dhananjayans’ group and workshops on clay modelling, painting and weaving. For details, visit: bookmyshow.com

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