Every year, the Indian Heritage Centre opens its doors for everyone to rediscover the vibrancy and beauty of Indian arts, culture and heritage in Singapore. But like all yearly affairs affected by the pandemic, this year's IHC CultureFest is slightly different.
While the Centre remains open for all to learn about the community's past – and present – through exhibitions including From the Coromandel Coast to the Straits, the festival goes online with its first digital edition from September 5 to 25. Look forward to over 40 programmes including traditional and contemporary cultural performances, panel discussions, workshops, story-telling sessions, cooking demonstrations and art installations – all revolved around the Sanskrit epic literary work Ramayana. New programmes will also be introduced on IHC's website and Facebook page every week to keep things fresh, so bookmark those pages.
Kicking off the festival this weekend is Sita, a dance production of acclaimed Indian artist Raja Ravi Varma’s Ramayana paintings, brought to life by local performance group Apsaras Arts. It's a great way to introduce audience of all ages to the world of Ramayana. For the uninitiated, Ramayana is a popular epic in South and Southeast Asia that documents King Rama's rescue mission to save his kidnapped wife Sita from the clutches of Ravana with the help of an army of monkeys.
Other highlights include a six-part series featuring the retelling of the epic by local storyteller Kamini Ramachandran and illustrations by local artist Yip Yew Chong. There's also a community youth showcase that fuses the traditional art forms of kalaripayattu, silambam, bharatanatyam, kathak, traditional yoga and veenai to reenact parts of Ramayana.
