From October 15 to 25, 2015, Macau will throw open its doors to the different cultures and cuisines of the Portuguese speaking territories of the world, as they celebrate the 18th Lusofonia Festival. Macau, which like other invited guests is a former territory of Portugal, will host countries like Angola, Brazil, Cape Verde, Goa, Daman and Diu, Guinea-Bissau, Macau, Mozambique, Portugal, São Tomé e Príncipe and East Timor.
The first Lusofonia Festival was held in 1998 on the Portuguese Expatriate Day to honour Portuguese-speaking individuals who reside in Macau and have contributed to Macau’s development. In its 18th year, the Lusofonia Festival will further demonstrate the vibrancy of Macau as a tourism destination; turning into a traditional event incorporated with the culture of rich Portuguese Speaking Communities. The festival will include music, dance and cuisine and Goa will be represented in these forms by Versatyle, a band and a dance troupe, and Ian D’Souza with his signature dishes from the restaurant, Off the Wall in Sinquerim.
Orlando de Noronha of Versatyle visited Macau for the first time in 1997, and later in 2007 with his band Tuna Goesa with Sonia Shirsat. This year however, Orlando will give the tour a miss as he will stay back in Goa. His band including Irene Rocha, Joaquim D’Costa, Kevin Mendes, Siddharth Cota and Brian Monteiro will be performing at two shows. “The band will be preforming Konkani and Portuguese music and songs composed by Goans. Our song list has nearly 15-20 songs for the festival and the dance troupe will perform to the songs. The music has to represent Goa,” says Orlando.
Savitri Gonsalves from St Cruz will be joining Versatyle with her six member dance troupe. The members of the group include three women and three men, Violet Fernandes from Moira, Severa Santos from Porvorim, Hubert Rodrigues from Ribandar, Laximan Naik from Porvorim and Ganpath (Prashil) Akhadkar from Panjim. “We will be performing on October 22 and 25, 2015, the final day of the festival. As we are representing Goa, Daman and Diu, we will be performing five sequences which we have been told to perform by the organisers. Thus far, we have practiced ‘Goenchi Fugdi’, ‘Corrindinho’, ‘Polle Polle’, ‘Marcha de Fontainhas’ and ‘Mira Mira’. We have done our own choreography and are waiting to see the people’s reaction in Macau,” says Savitri. The group, which also goes as Savi Events, has been performing for the past 15 years and performed in Germany in 2013 to promote tourism in Goa.
Ian D’Souza, who runs the restaurant, Off the Wall near Fort Aguada in partnership with his sister Taanaz, will be in Macau for the ten day festival. He will be busy for the first eight days merely preparing Goan food and making a panel of nearly 40 judges fall in love with the cuisine. To represent the cuisine of one of the Portuguese colonies, the organisers rely on the recommendations of restaurants. “My restaurant was recommended by one of the members of the organising committee and they approached me for a food tasting at the restaurant. I had an interview and was finally selected to showcase the cuisine of Goa. Once I arrive in Macau, we will have a three day orientation program and then an eight day cooking competition,” says Ian, who is already on his way to Macau.
He concludes, “The competition is more of an interactive cuisine festival, as the judges will be checking the different cuisines from across the world. My specialty will be ‘Urrak Pork’. This year, they will be providing us with an allowance to buy our own ingredients in Macau. Coconuts are available there and even turmeric, but the flavour is mild. I carried Urrak with me to use for the dish as it will not be available there. I have done my research about the ingredients required and their availability there.”
