Put a belly dancer and a writer in one room all night. What kind of creative work would they come up with? As it turns out, a full-blown shadow dance performance, accompanied by a compelling narration in the background. That is how ashow in an earlier edition of Art All Night — an all-night event for artists to work together — reinforced the belief in the power of collaboration. Imagine a Class X musician collaborating with a 60-year-old artist! The team at Platform for Artists (PFA), the organisers of the event, has seen stellar performances unfold under the dark blanket of the sky, in the four Art All Night events in Pune and Bengaluru. This weekend, the dawn to dusk art marathon is coming to Chennai at Life and Art Academy, Adyar, and is open to anyone who has a passion for art. The event, Pawan Rochwani, a co-founder of PFA, says, will start at 10 pm, with an ice-breaking session where the participants will talk about their interests. The group will then be split into pairs, and each pair — including artists of different interests — will have to come up with a creative piece at the end of two hours. “In one of the sessions, we had a drummer use empty bottles to make music. We expect the participants to use the props that are available; visual artists can bring their own materials,” he says. For the second half of the night, the participants will be allowed to form larger groups of three or four, and bring out another creative piece, which will be showcased the next day at 10 am, for the public. “This could be visual artwork, a skit, a dance, music, or anything. The scope is limitless,” says Rochwani. The Art All Night editions, says Rochwani, are simply rungs that will lead to a grand three-day festival in Lonavala where locals can witness musicians, artists, dancers and writers live at work. Rochwani, who is also a metallurgical engineer, invested in the project after reflecting on his own life, which he says would have been very different if he hadn’t had the opportunity to get close with his co-founders: Kshitija Sarda, a writer and metallurgical engineer; Shubham Shettiwar, a dancer and computer science engineer; and Ameya Deshmukh, a photographer and BCA graduate. “Now, I know contemporary dance and take up photography projects too!” he says. Rochwani believes that getting oneself exposed to a different art changes one’s perspective and evolves one’s work to take up a new fresh form. PFA aims to facilitate such exposure. “And we realised that most artists create the best work in the night.” While they haven’t spotted a sleepy eye till date, they ensure multiple swigs of coffee through the night for all. Art All Night will be held from 10 pm on September 23 to 10 am on September 24 at Life and Art Academy. For details, call 9840451111. The registration fee is ?900, and for students, ?750.

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