A little later
in the year, Europe-Asia Roundtable Sessions will join forces with the Mumbai Assembly for a four-day seminar
focusing on the creative industry developments in India. ‘EARS on Mumbai’ will
dive deep into Performing Arts, Film and Music while addressing topics such as
Marketing and PR, Digital Media, Funding and Arts Infrastructure.
EARS was set up in
2012 to provide a place for creative professionals from different cultural
settings to meet, connect and share ideas, because while professionals of
design, media and marketing, music, and performing arts share the passion for
international collaboration, to be successful in foreign markets, there is a
need to know local people and understand cultural differences. To date, EARS
events have been organised altogether eight times in Helsinki, Beijing and
Shanghai. In August 2016, EARS gathered 300 creative industry professionals
from Asia and Europe to Helsinki.
The next EARS event
will be held this year in Mumbai, from December 6-9, 2017 and this time around,
one of the Indian representatives is from Goa. Apart from filmmaker and rapper
Quashiq Mukherjee; Emmanuelle De Decker, the Founder of Gatecrash; Sohail
Arora, the Founder-Director of KRUNK; Rana Ghose, the Founder of Reproduce;
journalist and curator, Deepa Gahlot; Parmesh Shahani, the Founder and Head of
Godrej Culture Lab; Kirsi Mustalahti, the Founder and Chairwoman of ACCAC;
filmmaker and scriptwriter, Kanu Behl; Acho Ji, Business Development Manager
for S.T.D.; filmmaker and screenwriter, Pawan Kumar and Ren Yuqing, the Founder
and CEO of JZ Music; Goa will have its say through jazz musician and the
Founder of Jazz Goa, Colin D’Cruz.
When asked about the
reasons behind his selection as the speaker at EARS, Colin quips, “After
playing music for four decades, I guess someone noticed I’m a musician.
Seriously though, I have worked with a record number of bands, singers,
musicians and genres over the years, so I believe I am quite qualified to
represent the fraternity in India, especially in Goa.”
However, to quote the
epically popular line from Spiderman, ‘with great power, comes great
responsibility’, and one can’t help but wonder what things from the Goa
standpoint will be highlighted at the event.
“One thing I’m going
to bring attention to is the fact that Goa is a global music hub. I have
recorded and performed with more international musicians in Goa, than on any or
even all of my international assignments put together. I don’t know if it’s on
record, but I’m sure Goa has more live music venues than any other place in the
world, if you count karaoke, DJs and one man bands as live music, that is. Almost
every bar, restaurant, resort and hotel in Goa has some form of live music and
we have a few thousands of them. Of course, I will represent Goa more than
India, because I believe Goa is ‘the place’ for the arts in India. It’s the
reason why events like Serendipity Arts Festival, IFFI, Global International
Jazz Day and so many other events and festivals find a permanent venue in Goa.
In fact, I have also invited local artists to give me suggestions on matters
that need to be discussed besides my views and opinions,” Colin says, in
response.
And
if there is any scepticism as to whether anything will come of these talks, or
whether once they are done and dusted they will just be shelved and left at the
talk stage, Colin believes that these apprehensions should be cast out of the
thought process, and concludes by saying, “There have been positive results
documented after previous EARS events, considering there have been global
industry stalwarts at the helm of the event. That’s the obvious reason behind why
this has become an annual event. I personally hope to give Goa’s global music
destination angle the attention it truly deserves.”
