Agni - Fire of India

Our big project at work this year is not only to produce our own festivals (Mad Pride on the 21st of this month, and Liverpool Mental Health Festival, 10th to 14th Oct - book your trip to Liverpool now to avoid disappointment!) but to work with 8 other festivals to co-produce mental health themed events and activities, and use these as a way of researching community wellbeing and resilience.

One such festival is Milapfest, the UK’s leading Indian Arts Festival. Over the last couple of months we’ve been talking to members of the Indian community about their mental health and we’ve also been working with Milapfest and our friends at Bring the Fire to collaborate on a performance focusing on Agni, the Hindu fire goddess. The concept is that fire can be both destructive and healing - much like the spectrum of mental wellbeing. Times of distress can also lead to insight, creativity, cleansing and new beginnings.

The collaboration came to fruition at tonight’s ‘Feast of Fire’ event in St John’s Gardens but will also be adapted for our own festival in October.

Despite the terrible Bank Holiday weather, the hardy souls who braved the rain enjoyed the sitar and tabla raga performed by Jasdeep Singh Degun and Kousic Sen, and danced to Bombay Baja, Europe’s leading Indian Brass Band. The evening concluded with a high-octane display of Bhangra music and dance from the Nachda Sansaar musicians and dancers, who got the audience throwing some serious shapes along with them! As the music played, Agni herself walked amongst the crowd - to awe-struck gasps!

The Bhangra performers even did a routine in honour of The Beatles. In keeping with the mental health theme of the performance, the dance was choreographed to the song John Lennon wrote about his own mental health at the height of Beatlemania... ‘Help!’ https://youtube.com/watch?v=ZNahS3OHPwA

Before the main performances began, we used the occasion to do a bit of a vox pop of the crowd on a few aspects of community wellbeing, all of which will feed into our research findings over the course of this year.

I just couldn’t decide which photo to Blip today, so I’ve included several Extras, all of which capture something of the spirit of the night. Thanks to everyone who was involved!