The Contemporary Arts Week is Rocking The Town and How! Here's All About It

Delish food & drinks? Check. Groovy music? Check. Dance? Check. Crafts? Check. Chill vibes? Check. Everything that you need to have a good time? Double check!

One of Delhi’s most anticipated youth festivals of the year, the Contemporary Arts Week is back with its 4th edition, and it’s bigger than ever; we’re talking 8 days, 15 venues, 55 events and 450 artists spanning genres like clowning, puppetry, poetry, stand-up comedy, mime, dance, music, cinema, street art, photography and lots more, phew! With the freedom to choose whatever you’re in the mood for from the best of all worlds, the CAW is a week-long celebration of the performing arts that every self-respecting culture buff should make a beeline for!

We landed up at Nehru Park on the first day and were stoked to see that the ‘Friendly City Fest’ has retained its easy, relaxed vibe and happy atmosphere which loosens you right up after a hard day of Dilberting. There’s just something in the air here that instantly lifts your spirits!

When we arrived at around 2 PM, a sound check was underway on the main stage and the day’s events didn’t look like they were starting anytime soon, so we made our way over to the food and craft stalls to kill some time by devouring some delicious grub. After a cursory survey (read: following our noses to the end of the food court), we decided on Keventers and Biryani Blues. Wokbox also seemed to be drawing the maximum crowd with its handy meal boxes and one also had the option to choose from Asian Haus, Wood Fired Pizza Co., Costa Coffee, Pizza Hut and Café 27 among others. The bar was still being set up.

The crafts stalls (although few in number) had a wide array of cheerful home décor items and accessories. The beautiful handmade bookmarks and wallets at TARAgram looked too good to resist! These folks are doing a wonderful job of repurposing recycled material by employing rural women and we were glad to see them at a platform like CAW. Nicely done!

Finally, the events began at 5 PM (3 hours late, unfortunately) and we were lucky to catch the acoustic duo Martin and Sam from the band Play It By Ear performing their latest track ‘Eric’ live. The scattered crowd was immediately drawn to the soulful vocals and guitar riffs emanating from a small, intimate set-up near the food court. We sang and swayed along to old favourites from Snow Patrol and had a jolly good time!

Their performance was accompanied by a flash mob by the members of the NGO Atulyakala, who busted out some amazing Contemporary and Salsa moves! Looking at them dancing in perfect harmony with the live music, a difficult feat by any standard, no one could’ve guessed that the dancers were hearing-impaired. A truly heartfelt performance that got us on our feet!

The opening acts were followed by a Sufi night featuring big names like Shilpa Rao, Kutle Khan, Akhil Sachdeva (Nasha) and Apeksha Dandekar to light up the stage; The Raghu Dixit Project and Suryaveer were also slated to make an appearance.
That’s all we had time for, but we’ll definitely be back to drink some more from the horn of plenty that is the 4th Delhi Contemporary Arts Week! What are the chances of us bumping into you at one of their 15 venues? See you there!

Check Out Their FB Page Here | http://bit.ly/2e7xFor
Dates | 15th-22nd October 2016
Location | Multiple venues in Delhi & Gurgaon

This article is written by Misha Dwivedi. Misha is a part time writer and a full time Grammar Nazi. Currently hurtling through life at the speed of light, she makes time for dancing (not just at weddings and Ladies Nights), literature (current read: Joseph Anton), photography (hates selfies!) and hogging her face off on the pretext of upcoming-food-blog-research. Simple pleasures.