Milap Milestones
Since 1985, Milap (formerly called Milapfest) has played an important role in shifting and adding to the artistic landscape of Britain which as effected thousands of audiences and artists from across the globe.
Here are some of the principal Milap productions / contributions that have become important milestones for the South Asian Arts sector:
- Dance Yatra 2002: The groundbreaking dance event that presented over 300 dancers from all over Britain, to an excited audience of over 1500 people. The event presented school children, students and professionals together as never before,and showed off the rich variety of dance styles from India, from classical/traditional to folk and contemporary.
- Music for the Mind & Soul: Iconic monthly concert series with diverse musical experiences began regularly at the Barbirolli Room in Bridgewater Hall.
- Anand Yatra: the very popular Folk dance compilation with around 90 artistes premiered at the Lowry and was repeated twice.
- Sangeet Sabha: The National Conference for South Asian Music was held at the Bridgewater Hall in 2003; at the Lowry in 2004 and at the Peepul Centre in Leicester in 2005. This brought together everyone connected with South Asian Music and arts for the first time in an organised manner. Many new partnerships were born out of this conference.
- We created a regular, ongoing programme of Indian Music and Dance, along with workshops and other master classes around this visionary year round programme.
- The 1990s also marked a departure from the accepted practice so far: a South Asian arts organisation was making serious new relationships with major mainstream venues on an ongoing basis.
- Because of the strength of these partnerships, a number of major concerts were made possible for the first time in the Northwest: e.g. Ravi Shanker, Anoushka Shanker, Ustad Vilayat Khan, L Subramaniam, Abida Parween, Nitin Sawhney amongst others.
1985 – The Beginning
The organisation was created in 1985 by a group of like-minded friends to provide meaningful cultural activities which enhance friendship, understanding and cooperation between the Host community and the people of South Asian origin who had made their home in Britain. It also felt that sharing each other’s customs, traditions and arts was the best way for a community to remain harmonious and happy.
Beginning with a single day “Indian Cultural Evening”, Milap, as it was then known, quickly moved to a seven-day festival of Indian arts at Liverpool, incorporating music, dance, films, visual arts and crafts, enhanced by the presence of Indian food at all events. Over the next six years, the week-long festival was transformed into a year round programme of diverse art forms that stretched around the year and attracted a large number of interested audiences.
1990s – An organisation is born
Inevitably, the organisation became more focused on its core artistic and charitable objectives. In 1990, we became revenue clients of the erstwhile Merseyside Arts, and were encouraged to seek a charitable trust status. In 1993, Milap Festival Trust became a registered charity and an incorporated company, with the aim of creating a programme that supports arts cultural activities in Merseyside and beyond. It was during this second phase that we became a Regularly Funded Organisation (RFO) of Arts Council England as well as the Liverpool City Council.
In the early years, our work was focused on arranging high quality music and dance events for the communities of Merseyside. We also arranged theatre productions, visual art exhibitions, film seasons and community events which brought people together during festivals like Diwali and Navaratri. Slowly but surely the realisation dawned, that a number of gaps existed in performance and education within South Asian/Indian arts provision that needed to be tackled. This lead to a definite alteration in the direction that the organisation was taking.
In 1991 we established a new Concert Series called Music for the Mind & Soul. This has since then been taking place in Liverpool on the last Saturday of each month-(except December)-and is in its 26th year in 2016. The Concert Series at Liverpool are free for the audience, and have the added attraction of the availability of an Indian meal just before the concert begins. The Series has featured some of the biggest & best names in Indian Music along with a number of up and coming British musicians.
In addition, Milap presented regular dance evenings (Nritya Sandhya) that brought the work of many British as well as international dance artists to Merseyside for the first time.
The Manchester Move
In the 1999-2000 year we extended our work to Manchester through working closely with two iconic venues: The Bridgewater Hall & The Lowry. Through these newly created partnerships, the organisation was able to present a number of high profile programmes on a regular basis at Manchester, creating new audiences beyond Liverpool & Merseyside.
2000 – Creation of National Orchestras
Between 2001 and 2003 we successfully applied to the Arts Council England to grant us funds that would create a new National Youth Orchestra for South Asian Music. The Orchestra premiered at the Lowry to a packed house and was well received. However, from then on over the next few years there were numerous challenges that had to be dealt with. These included overcoming the initial misgivings and indifference of many teachers and musicians about such a bold experiment. But we continued to persevere, and eventually also established a new Senior Ensemble called Tarang. This became home to musicians who were in the post-samyo period, in the 18-30-year age group who were looking for a more structured pathway to become serious or full time musicians. This was a new beginning for the sector in England, to which a lot of new activities/initiatives have been added in subsequent years.
Our London Projects
In 2005, we began presenting the Music for the Mind & Soul Concert Series in London. We used multiple venues but were focused on the Purcell Room at the Southbank centre. We also presented the yearly Samyo Annual Showcase at the Queen Elizabeth Hall and frequently took our work to the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan in London. We also hold all our Reunion workshops and masterclasses at London.
2010 – Key Partnerships
Liverpool Hope University
In 2010, The organisation moved to offices based at Liverpool Hope University’s Creative Campus. The campus is focused on the creative arts and also features a state of the art theatre, The Capstone Theatre, which has become our home venue. This partnership continues to be strengthened with various projects including the appointment of Leela Samson as the first Visiting Professor of Indian Dance, followed by regular \visiting lecturers in Music and Dance.
International Partnerships
In 2011, Milapfest extended its reach internationally by creating a partnership with Apsaras Arts of Singapore. This partnership has resulted in international collaboration between artists from UK and Singapore and the performance and a new dance commission, Nirmanika. In 2012, the partnership also produced the first international edition of Dance India, an annual summer school for Indian dance at Singapore, which continues growing from strength to strength.