In the
middle of a part genteel, part raucous crowd, swaying to the tunes of some of
the finest jazz one would hear this side of the Suez canal, there was this man
with long, white flowing locks ambling along. You just could not miss Sanjoy
Roy, could you? He creates the crowd by curating events with a finesse which
looks as easy as the wave of his hand, a constant characteristic, as you chat
with this evangelist of books and music.
At the
recently concluded Goa International Jazz Live Festival (GIJLF), Sanjoy was
here, there and everywhere. His chatting with artistes, having a drink with
someone in the audience and buzzing around the food stalls thanking the owners
for their participation with a promise to be back next year made it a truly
jazzy festival.
However, to
box Sanjoy, MD of Teamwork Arts, as an emperor of out-of-the-box events would
be squeezing the massive girth of his repertoire into a match box tagline of
‘Event guru’. The Goa International Jazz Live Festival 2016 was a giant leap
from the admittedly valiant and successful effort of the earlier editions of
the festival, giving it a the stature, expanse and a firm presence on the
runway of jazz events in the world. While many in Goa missed the significance
of what really happened, we are in the beginning of something very serious. And
this is as much a tribute to Sanjoy, as it is to the evangelists who first
dreamt of this and brought it this far – Darryl Noronha, Vinesh Iyer and Emma
De Decker. And a good way to get the scale of what we are talking about is to
simply know that Teamwork Arts handles art festivals in 25 countries in a
journey spanning 29 years.
Casually
seated on a stone bench facing the pristine Santeram Bay a few days ago, Sanjoy
makes light of his company’s many achievements. According to Sanjoy, his
company began as a television and film company and produced multiple soaps and
serials for the emerging Indian television industry in the 1980s and 90s.
However,
sometime in the late nineties, Sanjoy decided to recalibrate the company into
an event management company. First off the block was the ‘Friends of Music’
platform in New Delhi which saw pop-rock bands like the ‘Indian Ocean’,
‘Parikrama’ and ‘Euphoria’ keep Delhiwallahs on their toes.
This was
followed by organising quality theatre shows and encouraging new writing in
theatre. Work also extended to innovative, ‘out of box’ dance shows with
the likes of the world famous, Astaad Deboo.
Just sample
some of the magic. In Cairo, Egypt, they flew in Gilles Chuyen, the
French-Vietnamese Bollywood choreographer to work in tandem with an Egyptian
ballet company to leave a mark on the audiences. In Singapore, violinist L
Subramaniam played with the Singapore symphony orchestra and in Johannesburg,
South Africa, an Indian classical dancer to combine with the Johannesburg
symphony orchestra.
Turning his attention to Jazz, Sanjoy said that he was
thrilled with what he saw in Goa. “The crowds and the music at the Goa
International Jazz Festival were simply out of this world. Goa will clearly be
our hub for all jazz events and we hope to organise many more art festivals in
Goa in the coming years,” Sanjoy said.
