Marvelous Reality: a cultural initiative supported by seven embassies and five international cltural centres is a forum that brings you the best of literature, theatre, cinema, art, dance, food and wine through the year. The first Marvelous Reality festival was launched in 2009. Marvelous Reality too 2010 will bring together an international cultural extravaganza supported by embassies and cultural centres.
This unprecedented event has been conceptualised by Delhi based journalist/filmmaker/curator Sunil Mehra, to establish the organic connectivity of diverse art forms and underline the linkages. The attempt is to invite dancers, choreographers, writers, filmmakers, painters, designers, art theorists to meet, to confabulate, to hold up the prism to the light and generate discussion, thinking, debate on the way thought/idea manifests, expresses itself in various media and whether there are indeed significant linkages, similarities in the conceptual process.
The Marvelous Reality festival is brought to you by the Abhyas Art Initiative headed by Navtej Johar, Sunil Mehra and Aruna Vasudev. Other members of the team include Project Coordinator Leena Namjoshi and Pragya Tiwari. This initiative is also supported by Namrata Rana, an IIM A alumni and Director of Futurescape.
The Team
He has also worked in as staff writer, columnist, editor for prestigious Indian newspapers and periodicals like Times Of India, The Indian Express, Pioneer, India Today and Outlook.
He has collaborated closely on his dance production ‘RE-membering’ in 2001 and produced short dancers-at-work genre films on dancers Chandralekha, Akram Khan, Aditi Mangaldas, Daksha Sheth, Navtej Johar for the French National Archive for Contemporary Dance in Paris.
Sunil brings together a fascinating creative blend of appreciation for art, dance, literature, theatre and film. The Marvelous Reality show has been conceived by him.
She is the Founder-President of NETPAC (the international Network for the Promotion of Asian Cinema), Founder-Editor of Cinemaya, The Asian Film Quarterly (1988-2006) and Founder-Director of Cinefan, the Festival of Asian Cinema (1999-2004) – now Osian’s-Cinefan. She has been a member of the jury of more than thirty international film festivals., including Cannes (Camera d’Or), Locarno, Pusan, Granada, Karlovy Vary, Singapore, Las Palmas, etc.
Aruna Vasudev was conferred Korea’s Award for promotion of Korean films; the Cinemanila Asian Cinema Award ; France’s top cultural award, the Chevalier des Arts et des Lettres; the The Satyajit Ray Memorial award, the Star of Italian Solidarity, and others.
She’s been art consultant to the Corporates/Institutes like PfizerIndia (Mumbai), NTRO (National Technical Research Institute) FIEO, Paras Buildtech and many others in association with the leading architects of India.
“Cosmic Bliss” a 5 artists’ show at Nehru Centre, London , along with consulting for 11th Triennale India as a Project Manager for “Art-Mart” project, Old World Hospitality London Projects, “Sitaaray Art Camp” and two Solo shows by Nayanaa Kanodia and Satish Gupta in London. Art coordination and PR in London for “KAARU” a Design and Architecture firm during Pratham Charity Gala Dinner in Sept. 2007.
Abhyas Art Initiative
Abhyas, an NGO was founded in August 2002 by dancer/yoga exponent Navtej Singh Johar, Journalist/documentary filmmaker/curator Sunil Mehra is the Managing Trustee. Abhyas has worked with distinction in the fields of dance, yoga , animal care and urban design. Abhyas has organised innumerable, hugely successful dance collaborations; most recently Mango Cherry Mix with Navtej Johar and Japanese dancer Hiroshi Miyamoto that toured major Indian metros to immense critical acclaim. It is now set to tour major Japanese cities in 2010.
The Abhyas Yoga Studio, has been featured in a series on Yoga on ND TV the Lonely Planet Guide Books. The Yoga Studio conducts regular yoga retreats within the country and abroad and over the last eight years has built up a committed national and international clientele.
Abhyas works with six Delhi schools on its Citizens for Animals Initiative as also conducts regular workshops with children in these schools as part of its Urban Design Initiative. Abhyas’s work in the Urban Design field was recently honoured at the first Urban Design Summit organised by Habitat in Sept 2009. We were awarded the prestigious Urban Design Initiative Award.
The Abhyas Art Initiative is Abhyas’s first foray into the fields of art, literature, theater and film and is meant to underline its deep commitment to the arts as also its firm belief in demolishing false boundaries erected between diverse art practices.
