If you are in New York this weekend and are looking at checking out some Asian stuff on stage in the evening, you are in luck as the maiden South Asian International Performing Arts Festival (SAIPAF) will soon be heading into its finale evenings.Organised by M.A.D. Playhouse and the Congressional award-winning Hypokrit Theater Company in association with the Access Theater Company, the debut edition of the festival got underway on Monday, August 3, and has since staged over 50 performances on theater, dance, music as also readings, stand up acts and some spoken words too.According to the organisers, SAIPAF is the first festival of its kind in Manhattan and is built to support artists financially in addition to getting their work in front of an audience, industry and peers. What makes this festival a boon for the performing artistes is the fact that it is a no-fee festival; besides, it also provides them marketing, technical and mentorship services free of charge on profit-sharing model. Arpita Mukherjee, festival chair for the inaugural edition of SAIPAF, said in a press statement, “Our motto is ‘Making Multicultural Mainstream.’ We have brought this festival to NYC to show that the South Asian arts and culture, as well as artistes of South Asian heritage are already a part of the American cultural fabric.”The festival hopes to revitalize the performing arts culture by discovering and promoting new artistes, producers and projects; by nurturing a vibrant and innovative artistic community; and by connecting South Asian art forms and art by South Asian artistes with a diverse, contemporary audience. The festival received over 200 applications for the inaugural edition out of which it programmed over 50 performers representing a diverse range of arts. The people behind the SAIPAF are Samir Lal (executive producer), Arpita Mukherjee (festival chair), Shubhra Prakash (festival director), Iman Chowdhury (operations director) and Aizzah Fatima (programming director). While Lal is the founder of the M.A.D. Playhouse Theater and produced the acclaimed “Half-Hearted at The Cherry Lane,” Mukherjee is the co-founding artistic director of Hypokrit Theater Company. She has over a decade of experience in professional theater as a writer, producer and choreographer. Her work was featured in the South Asian Literature and Theater Arts Festival at the Smithsonian.Prakash is the co-founding artistic director and actor at Hypokrit Theater Company. A writer, producer and performer, she recently served as a voiceover artiste for “Priya's Shakti,” an interactive media project supported by Tribeca New Media Fund. For her play, “For Our Own,” she received the Activist Award. Chowdhury is a media/ entertainment consultant and Fatima is a writer and performer well known for her one woman comedy play, “Dirty Paki Lingerie.” This play has been staged to full houses in NYC and Toronto, at the Edinburgh Fringe Festival and on tours to Pakistan and Turkmenistan. She is the director of the UK-based HaLoL Entertainment. — The South Asian International Performing Arts Festival runs through Sunday, August 9, at Urban Stages (259 W. 30th Street NY, NY 10001) and Access Theater (380 Broadway, NY, NY 10013). Tickets, priced at $25-$45, can be bought at eventcombo.com or by calling 646-838-2352, or visiting the venues; those would be available until the last performance commences. For details, log on to www.saipaf.orgFollow @ARTINFOIndia
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