On a cool Friday evening, the music beats from Sadhana Dell ‘Arte were
drifting through the wind, punctuated with excerpts from books by different
writers. This confluence of music and literature was taking place at the Book
Reading on the Beat event organised and produced for the first time in Goa by
G128, a hyper-local platform for artistes, created by a collective of
documentary directors, writers, graphic artistes and to bring together writers,
musicians and poets in curated performances.
Sadhana Dell ‘Arte, an exclusive co-working
space for all art forms, workshops, seminars, art exhibitions with residency
was the venue for the event organised by Thus. and curated by Nilankur Das and
Pogoat, the director of the event and the author of the book ‘Fair-Weather
Brother’.
Speaking about the event, Nilankur Das says,
“This was the first event of Book Reading on the Beat and we plan to continue
with more sessions through the year. Three authors, Damodar Mauzo, Jessica
Faleiro and Pogoat, read excerpts from their books while musicians Joe Ferrao,
Sameer Alvares and Alister D’Sa produced music for each reading. They read two
writings each and accordingly the musicians created the mood for the readings
through their music.”
The writers and musicians had to rehearse
thoroughly to understand the writing and when to take a pause or change the
tempo. After practising for nearly 2-3 days, they were set to present their
work to the audience. Nilankur is familiar with this reading and musical interaction
as he often has programmes based on poetry with music at 6 Assagao.
“It was great having the opening of this
programme with great authors like Damodar Mauzo, who also read from his book
‘Price you Pay’. The new venue had a different audience with students from Goa
University and members of International Centre Goa as well as residents of
Panjim, Dona Paula, Caranzalem and Merces joining in,” he adds.
Pogoat, the pseudonym used by the author of
‘Fair-Weather Brother’ came up with the idea of adding music to the reading.
“The first event was a success because it was really appreciated by the
audience. With the music playing, it was so smooth for the writer to connect
with the audience. The musicians were awesome, they managed to get the right
chords, keys, notes as the story intensified, the whole evening was very
groovy,” says Pogoat.
The musicians adapted Goan folk music to
Damodar Mauzo’s novel ‘Karmelin’. He says, “Reading to a beat was a thrilling
experience for me. The concept itself was a novel one. Joe, Sameer and Alister
were quick to pick up the rhythm and adapt to the narration. The effect was
multi-fold. The event found a lot of compliments from the discerning audience.”
Jessica read a chapter titled ‘Joy’ from her
book ‘The Delicate Balance of Little Lives’ to Jazz beats and then the audience
were spooked with the haunting sounds as she read ‘Sam’s Story’ from
‘Afterlife: Ghost stories from Goa’. “We had a reggae skank for ‘Fair-Weather
Brother’. Each writer had the opportunity to go with the music that resonated
with their work. Besides my love for reggae, I also thought it was important
for us to showcase different genres of music. So with contemporary Goan folks
music, Jazz, funk and reggae were all fused together in one evening,” says
Pogoat.
What’s next
for Book Reading on the Beat? “I have been approached by many cafes for similar
events, and I’m quite excited by the encouragement. I would be equally
interested in having such musical book readings in book shops, street corners
and even libraries. Our vision is to increasing reading and these events will
be more to relive the books and help promote new books. Seems like an exciting
time for literature,” concludes Pogoat.
