MUMBAI: REProduce Artists to showcase future-facing talent at The Peacock Club; award-winning VR films showcase VR Kino in collaboration with UnBox; more festival collaborations with queer collective Dragery and social networking app Bumble; festival’s fundraising efforts for improving medical infrastructure in Alsisar

December 2019 – Globally recognised as one of the most beautiful festivals in the world for its blend of heritage arts mixed with contemporary culture, Magnetic Fields has quickly come to represent an India that is embracing of its past, and future-facing in its outlook. 

The seventh edition of the festival will be held across three days from December 13 to 15.

Over the past six years, New Delhi-based collective REProduce has been focused on bringing uncompromising talent from India to the attention of the world. Since 2016, their focus has been to create and provide the de facto platform in India for musical artistic risk-taking by merging uncompromising musical talent and unexpected venues.

In December, they bring their signature event series REProduce Listening Room to Magnetic Fields. Aiming to fill a gap in the ever-iterating and increasingly varied community of live music in India by showcasing talent that might not get heard in more mainstream oriented venues, REProduce Listening Room focuses purely on the music – in a space where an audience can absorb sound on their own terms.

Taking over the veritable The Peacock Club for an all-nighter on Saturday, they will present a microcosm into their vision, showcasing as wide a variety of styles as there are reasons to enter, sit, watch, and remember.

The line-up for the night includes up-and-coming acts that aren’t afraid to flirt with the weird and noisy like Mumbai-based Three Oscillators, post-hardcore act Pacifist, multi-lingual hip-hop collective Park Circus, noise-pop outfit killpop, noise act SISTER, collaborative duo Gia and Kalpa and Circuit Record Label showcase featuring Hashback Hashish and VvvvV.

In addition to music, Magnetic Fields programs multiple content streams like storytelling in the form of Magnetic Words; combines music and wellness in the Magnetic Sanctuary; shines a light on culinary traditions through Magnetic Feasts and showcases some of India’s most exciting artists from different disciplines.

For its seventh edition, the festival has invited back Goa-based collective HH Art Spaces for a large-scale commission in the Bedouin village (desert campsite) involving three distinct works – Helical Dream, Sea of Serenity and Art Cinema and HH Gallery.

UnBox also returns for the second year of a VR showcase at Magnetic Fields, titled VR Kino. Featuring cutting-edge, award-winning films from India and across the world, VR Kino promises a unique exhibition of delicious and immersive Virtual Reality films that will take you on a journey of captivating stories from different walks of life.

The Kino will enable one to understand how the medium empowers storytelling by teleporting them into realms of dreams, fantasy and interpretations of heritage. The showcase has been curated by Future Fiction, UnBox’s platform for new media and immersive storytelling.

Films that are part of the VR showcase:

Aravani Art Project (India)

By Sairam Sagiraju

Selected by UNESCO as part of their kindness campaign, this film aims to put viewers in the shoes of trans-women who overcome social stigma and come together to express themselves through street wall art.

Bambaiyya VR (India)

Conceptualised and developed by Archit Vaze, Jyoti Narayan and Salil Parekh. Unity developer: Alap Parikh. Sound artist: Tejas Nair

Bambaiyya VR is a virtual experience that takes you on a journey through different communities that helped shaped Mumbai to its present form, by creating a visual and lyrical testimony of the city’s multifaceted cultural reality.

Vikram and Betaal VR (India)

Created and developed by Gomathi Shankar, Raghavendran, Kritisha Jain and Aditya Virmani.

By recreating the collection of stories of the honourable King Vikramaditya and a wicked ghoul Betaal from Betaal Pachisi, this virtual reality experience aims to reinterpret the 2500-year-old Indian folklore tale which encourages one to re-look at our heritage and consider new ways of creating, sequencing, sharing and adapting stories.

Dreams of The Jaguar’s Daughter (Mexico)

By Alfredo Salazar-Caro

Dreams of the Jaguar’s Daughter is an experimental, surreal VR documentary in three parts about the spirit of a young Mayan immigrant as she recounts the stories from her dreams and memories of her journey northwards, from Guatemala to central Mexico to the Arizona desert.

Blood Speaks (India)

By Poulomi Basu

Blood Speaks: A Ritual of Exile is a transmedia activism project that reveals the social, emotional and physical consequences of normalised violence against women perpetuated under the guise of tradition.

Magnetic Sanctuary

Wellness is increasingly becoming an integral part of a music festival’s offering, and Magnetic Fields is the first festival in India to curate a space that’s more about relaxation than raving.

An informal space open to guests all day on Saturday and Sunday, the Magnetic Sanctuary is a chill decompression zone that serves as a retreat from the bustle of festival life. Bringing ancient knowledge and wellness practices to Magnetic Fields, pop in at this alcohol-free space to ease your sore body with an ayurvedic massage, custom-blend an essential oil fragrance, see what colour and sound your vibe gives off, immerse yourself in a calming gong bath, learn how to dye natural fabric with natural indigo powder, or just relax until you’re ready to return to the dancefloor. The following activities will be available in Magnetic Sanctuary from 7 am to 10 pm on Saturday and Sunday.

a) Farasha with Priyanjali & Dhruv

Farasha is the brainchild of yoga and massage therapist and psychologist Priyanjali Das and architect and musician Dhruv Dhingra. They combine the knowledge of psycho-acoustics, harmonic science and integrative restoration (iRest) therapy to bring you a unique experience.

b) One-On-One Fragrance Consultation with Shubhra

Shubhra Chaturvedi is an aromatherapist, a writer, co-founder Meraki Essentials who believes in holistic solutions. Shubhra will be working with different custom diffuser blends through the day and will be available for one-on-one aromatherapy consultations.

 c) Ayurvedic Massage with Rosario

Originally from Sicily, Rosario Belmonte has spent the last five years in India learning various techniques to strengthen body, mind and spirit. Having worked as a Prana healer in Italy, Bali and India, he practices chakra energy alongside Ayurveda yoga massage – a unique system of bodywork that combines deep tissue massage with coordinated breathing and yoga to help remove physical tension and stimulate the natural flow of energy.

 d) Biofield Assessment

A colour to sound synaesthesia experience where the colours in the biofield will be translated into sound. Each chakra is a transponder responsible for a specific range of frequencies within the spectrum that the human field broadcasts and receives information. The frequency of the chakras will be synchronised with visuals and sound.

 e) Gong Bath with Sanj Hall

Sanj Hall is a traveling gong yogi, sound artist and a gong teacher, who has studied cognitive theories, techniques and sound healing. Catch his soundbathing workshop in the Magnetic Sanctuary on Sunday.

f) Natural dyeing workshop with 11.11/eleven eleven

Sustainable high-fashion label 11.11 / eleven eleven has consolidated its roots in the luxury space, while emphasizing on creating links between farmers, weavers, natural dyeing and block printing traditions. The label uses 100 per cent natural dyes and will teach you the age-old process.

Also making a comeback will be one of the festival’s most Instagrammable corners, Ahmedabad-based research and design studio SHED, whose interactive installations bring to life ancient Indian board games and the famous Treasure Hunt.

Puqaar

Introducing new audiences to centuries-old folk traditions is one of our endeavours at Magnetic Fields through Puqaar, our folk music stage. The festival weekend is a chance to catch maestros of instruments and melodies unheard of in the modern world. This year, Puqaar will feature a snapshot of the dying artform of Pabuji Ki Phad, where wandering minstrels narrate tales of the great Pabuji in front of a religious scroll painting of folk deities - their portable shrine. Other performers include manganiyar Jameel Khan, Ustad Hakeem Khan on kamaicha and Male Khan on alghoza.

Bumble Hive

Social networking app Bumble makes its foray in music festivals in India with a curated experience for its users at Magnetic Fields. The Bumble Hive is where festival goers and Bumble app users can mingle and get the quintessential festival look.

Paradise at The Peacock Club with Hunee and Dragery

Sunday night at The Peacock Club will feature one of dance music’s warmest characters and best selectors, Hunee alongside a performance by Delhi-based queer collective, Dragery.

As likely to draw for a classic house record as he is a disco curveball, a boogie delight or mixing an African bomb into a techno record, Hunee’s prowess as a selector is known across the seven seas, and this is the second time the Berlin-based DJ and producer is playing at Alsisar.

Dragery’ is a gathering of queer people as a close community, to explore gender, identity, fetish, desire, through the form of drag. ‘Dragery Takes the Floor’ challenges representation of drag in India, and hopes to push for more queer visibility in mainstream nightlife.

Fundraising for medical facilities in Alsisar

The unhesitating and warm hospitality of the village of Alsisar is one of the reasons Magnetic Fields is a favourite for artists and attendees alike. Last year, in order to give back to the community, the festival launched a fundraising campaign (which continues this year) that went towards improving the medical infrastructure in the village.

People living in regional areas often fall through the cracks, struggling to obtain access to the life-saving medical equipment and specialist doctors that people living in metropolitan areas often take for granted.

According to The Lancet, a staggering 70 per cent of the population in India still lives in rural areas and has no or limited access to hospitals and clinics.

With this in mind, we reached out to Smile Foundation, who specialise in providing healthcare to the poorest of the poor and in the remotest of places. Using the funds we raised last year – Rs 3,80,000 – they have purchased and installed quality health care equipment at the local primary healthcare centre. Funds raised this year will go towards conducting camps for healthcare awareness and hygiene education through the year via their unique mobile hospital programme, Smile on Wheels.

Magnetic Fields post-parties

The festivities don’t step when the festival ends. Delhi and Mumbai will host post-festival parties on December 18 with marquee artists like Daniel Avery, Deena Abdelwahed, HAAi, Nazira and DJ Plead playing in Delhi while Palms Trax and Hunee will make their Mumbai debut at antiSOCIAL.

Tickets are available at www.insider.in.