Crafts of Garba Produced by Subrang Arts
This fascinating exhibition celebrates the crafts associated with the folk dance and ritual of Garba, recognised by UNESCO as The Intangible Cultural Heritage of Humanity
While often understood through movement and music, Garba is equally a story of craft. It highlights the craft traditions woven into the ritual of Garba—clothing, adornment, offerings, and festive decoration that shape the dance space and the body in motion. Every mirror-stitched garment, textile, clay vessel, and ornament reflects generations of artisan knowledge. This project explores Garba through the objects that make it possible revealing how ritual, textile, wood, and clay/bead crafts shape a living performance tradition.
A year long programme of various craft activities engaged local communities with artisans. These crafts shape the body, the shrine and the dance circle itself ensuring that they remain living, shared and relevant today in modern Britain. Together with these crafts, field research in Gujarat was undertaken connecting with local artisans and exploring how these crafts are practised in India and how different communities interact to make dresses, ritual pots, and musical instruments.
Come and explore this captivating Gujarati culture and heritage through objects, film and workshops.
Dates : Monday, 14 September 2026 to Tuesday, 29 September 2026
Timing : All Day
Venue : Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 4A Castletown Road, London, London, W14 9HE
Tickets : £25 stall tickets, £20 tiered stall tickets
All associated events as listed below
'Rang Dhvani - The Real Sound of Colours'
Sunday, 30th April 2023
Few Comments from Audiences
'Superb - Very professional and worthy of presenting anywhere, in any forum, whether here or abroad.'
'The singing and the dance sequences were extremely well coordinated and beautifully rendered. Above all, Rakesh Joshi`s lead and direction, together with his many compositions, provided a seamless focus and continuity.'
'I was totally mesmerised . Spectacular!'
London Borough of Culture - Oratorio of Hope
The Indian dancers and singers of Subrang Arts performed with silky grace
By Richard Morrison (The Times)
Fairfield Halls, Croydon
★★★★☆
You would think that hope was in short supply in Croydon right now, what with the local council being all but bankrupt and scandal swirling round some of its horrendously costly past misdeeds. Despite all that, however, the place has been selected as this year’s London Borough of Culture — and this opening event (with the Fairfield Halls reasonably full for once) was rather good. I couldn’t have been the only person to be pleasantly shocked.
Its title, Oratorio of Hope, suggested something rather worthy and old-fashioned. In fact it was a buoyant and ingeniously constructed showcase. Each of its eight movements focused on a different facet of Croydon’s multicultural life, with a big accent on youth. Such a format could have been a recipe for an incoherent and rambling medley, but four things unified it into a compelling whole.
The first was the presence throughout of Croydon’s resident professional orchestra, the London Mozart Players. They played with admirable verve under the conductor Jonathan Bloxham, whether merging elegantly into classical Indian modes or, in a roof-raising finale, supporting hundreds of young instrumentalists and singers drawn from Croydon schools.
The second strength was the joyous music, which was a series of team-written variations (coordinated by the composers Fiona Brice, Sarah Freestone and Jeff Moore) on an exuberant, pulsing opening theme composed by Tarik O’Regan, who grew up in Croydon. In the same way, each text for the oratorio’s sung movements drew on a rosy word-portrait of the borough written by “Croydon’s poet laureate”, Shaniqua Benjamin.
Then there was the slickness of the presentation (directed by Thomas Guthrie), with platform readjustments executed seamlessly and the music punctuated by short, punchy films introducing the participants and their very different creative worlds.
Then there was the slickness of the presentation (directed by Thomas Guthrie), with platform readjustments executed seamlessly and the music punctuated by short, punchy films introducing the participants and their very different creative worlds.
Subrang Arts is a Registered Charity, a Not for Profit
voluntary organisation dedicated to the promotion and
development of Asian Art and Culture. ‘Subrang’ means
spectrum of colour and it represents the rich cultural
heritage of the Indian Sub Continent. One of our
objectives is to foster an appreciation and understanding
of the rich and diverse heritage that originates from the
Sub-Continent, and to help in maintaining its identity in a
multicultural society .
We believe that education and entertainment can be
combined and to achieve this objective, we organise
numerous cultural programmes, exhibitions, heritage
projects, music concerts, talks, lectures and
demonstrations. We actively engage young people in
our activities with a view to develop them holistically.
