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Dear Goanetters, I believe the perpetuation of the MANDO in goa is a serious issue ...and deserves serious consideration.The **Goa Cultural & Social Centre ** has done a stupendous job of keeping the Mando alive for 38 years. there are other groups that do their bit. On 05 Dec the Chinchinim parish [near Margao] will present their 28 Mando Festival. there were 17 groups at the Goa Cultural & Social Centre's Mando festival this year as against just 13 groups four years ago. This is a healthy sign. As in almost all cases, the issue is money, honey. Call it sponsorship, patronage, donations, advertisements in the souvenir, space courtesy for advertisements, grants, subsidies or free venue...IT IS MONEY. The comments made by various persons in Fred's interview four years ago are valid today. they say exactly the same thing; the key to success here is MONEY. There is no dearth of talent or interest among the young or the old. There is a need for organization and finance. Goa Cultural & Social Centre does not have a base, a permanent office and staff. The Goa Government and Kala Academy board can offer this to the Goa Cultural & Social Centre at the recently renovated K.A. in Campal. once IFFI is over. It is also time that either the Secretary or President of the Goa Cultural & Social Centre is made an ex-officio member of the K.A.Board. If a BJP government can have a Congressman at the helm of K.A., it can definitely have a member of the Goa Cultural & Social Centre in its Board of Directors. After, the Mando represents the culture of Goa through the ages through its song and dance. It cuts across religion,caste,class and even race barriers. Goa does not have a 'film culture' yet we are proud to host an international film festival. It puts Goa centre stage. That is good. The event is being used to showcase Goa's arts,crafts and music. This is a departure from the previous 34 IFFIs. This makes the Goa event better. There will be films on the beach for the public[locals and domestic/foreign tourists].There is something for everyone. The infrastructure that IFFI will leave behind can be utilised to develop the MANDO further. The 940 seat Dinanath Mangueshkar hall can be used to present two or even three Mando festivals a year. the best Mando troupes can be invited to present Mando, dulpods,dekhni at the 2nd GOMANT VISHWA SAMMELAN [January 3 to 5, 2005]the Kala Academy. That would be a good start. Dr.Bicaji Ghanekar has been doing a good job anchoring the Goa Cultural & Social Centre's annual Mando festivals. He is not getting younger. Amita Nayak Salatary, Meenacshi Martins, Updesh Swar, Remo Fernandes, Sigmund D'Souza and others need to step in. The profile has to be stepped up. Groups from Mumbai, Delhi, Lisbon, Porto, Kuwait, Dubai, Toronto, London, Nairobi or Maputo or where ever the Goan diaspora exists and sings the mando should be invited to present their renditions of the mando. The groups SURYA ,EKVAT and Casa de Goa in Portugal have full-blooded Goans in their ranks. Maria Lourdes Lemos and Dr.Rui Elvino de Sousa often comefrom Portugal to visit their daughter Nalini who runs 'A Nau' in the heart of Panjim.They dance the mando for weddings in Portugal; we wait for the Mando festival to do that. The best we can mange in Goa is to 'sing' a mando. Most of us do not know to 'dance' the mando and there is no hope of teaching that to our children who dance the fox-trot, waltz, tango,cha-cha, jive and even the Salsa but cannot dance the mando or dekhni. It is time the mando came back into our daily lives.It is not enough to sing " Hanv dekhni nachotam.." or "Hanv Saiba poltodi vetam"...it is time to cross the river and to reach the destination. There will be netters who will disagree with me but I would like to state it just the same. Call Shri Manohar Parrikar on his commitment to give premises to the Goa Cultural & Social Centre once IFFI is over...and you will not find him wanting. He has delivered the facilities for IFFI as he said he would. The old Goa Medical College building never looked better, during the colonial era or thereafter, as it looks now. The KA auditorium did not have the fire retardent materials and firefighting systems that it has now. The place is not just better looking or more comfortable, it is safer. Frankly, I do not believe we had a Chief Minister with a vision after Bhausaheb Bandodkar...till Manohar Parrikar came along. He is a bit autocratic. That is a part of the package for an achiever. Who would rather have a Luizinho, Sardinha, Rane or Jitendra except one of these worthies themselves? Till someone better comes along, Parrikar is the best. That stands for the foreseeable future. So get set to have premises for the office of the Goa Cultural & Social Centre . > From: "Frederick Noronha (FN)" <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> > Subject: [Goanet]Mando... some issues > Godfrey's post reminded me of something written two or three years ago. > Before anyone could ask why local culture gets step-motherly treatment, > Parrikar neatly turned around the argument, saying if IFFI could get > crores then all forms of local culture too deserved support. There are many > different Goas, and we all seem to be living in separate worlds! > > Perhaps the organisers of this event need to broad-base it and include more so as to ensure a better success. Networking, and making use of the new media, could also help. Surely a colourful event like this could be suitable promoted via suitable audio and video coverage -- not just routine, protocol stuff (photographers anyway rush to VVIPs giving > speeches and felicitating a string of others) but something that would > really showcase the charm of this event with its finery et al. FN > - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - > > IS GOA'S DANCE-SONG, THE 'MANDO', DYING OUT IN ITS HOME STATE? > > BY FREDERICK NORONHA > > PANJIM, Dec 10: Lacking official support, the 'mando' festival organisers have to beg for > patronage. They often include politically-powerful persons on their > organising committee to ensure that small mercies come their way. > The melody of the mando is uniformly melancholic. So perhaps is the > story about the state in which the dance-song form finds itself > currently. > > The latest in the series of annual 'mando' festivals, the 34th, was held > at Panjim on the weekend. Barely 150 persons purchased tickets and only 13 > troupes participated. "Fifteen years ago, we had to stand on the gates and stop people from > rushing in. Today, we have people coming leisurely. We have to wait as the > enter by the two's and four's half-an-hour or an-hour late," one of the > organisers, Shashikant A. Sardesai told this correspondent. > Dependence on official patronage for this event has its own pitfalls. > Says Shashikant : "Every year we call a minister as the guest. They always make promises to use. But on the next > day, we don't get anything from the government, except perhaps some > advertisement." > What then is the reason for the decline of the 'mando'? Incidentally, > this dance-song form saw its heydey in the 'sixties and 'seventies, when > it was revived in a big way in post-colonial Goa > Today, schools are caught up with a heavy academic burden, and this > perhaps keeps little time for traditional events like the 'mando'. "In our > times as students, before the 'seventies, the last item in the school > concert would typically be a 'mando'," points out Dias. > > It's costly to stage the mandos. "If we give groups five hundred rupees > to a thousand to attend, what will they do with it? We are indeed thankful > that they keep coming. If it were not for them (the village-based mando > groups), the mando would have indeed vanished," says Sardesai. Organisers feel they need the funds and adequate sponsors, that would enable them to pay each participating group a subsidy of "two to five > thousand rupees", as an incentive to take part. > Priests -- who once were promoters of Western music in the state through > parish music schools and similar events -- are hardly seen at the 'mando' > these days. "Maybe they're too getting modernised," says Dias, a bit in > dismay. But he points to the role of father Romano Gonsalves, at the > Fatorda, in promoting the 'mando' over the years. This priest's story is an unusual one. > Gonsalves has a post-graduate degree, but that doesn't make him turn his > back on traditional culture. He has been taking part in the 'mando' > festival since 1983, and it's almost a ritual for him. Where-ever he's been posted Romano Gonsalves has been keenly egging on locals to participate in the mando festival. Whether it was Loutolim, > Raia, Sant Estevam, Agaciam, Aldona... or this time, Fatorda. Gonsalves believes that finance is the main problem that is choking the 'mando'. For instance, transporting the troupe itself costs Rs 1200. Costumes and other items have become "so expensive". Initially, he says, the younger generation tends to shy away from the 'mando'. "In the first year, it's difficult to get them to take part. But once they dance it , they want to come back, and keep asking when the > next festival is to be held," says Gonsalves. "I only take villagers as part of our troupes. We want to encourage local talent and spread it," says he. > Zezito Lobo, a Gulf-returned Goan from Calangute who this year sponsored a Rs 10,000 prizes, believes that networking with other like-minded organisations could breed new life into the 'mando'. > > Organisers are indeed near unanimous that the 'nineties have seen the decline of the 'mando'. Some blame it on the fast-paced "TV culture", which has made audiences expect something else from entertainment. > Others on the panel point out that their organisation, which has been active for some three decades, still does not have its representative on the Kala Academy, the state-funded centre to encourage the performing arts and music in the state. But other businesspeople and even politicians, who might have little connection with art and culture, have a say in the > running of such bodies, they point out. But then, such is the functioning of Goa's post-colonial cultural czars, who have their own ideas about which forms of 'art and culture' need patronage, and which don't. > > Marina Monteiro of St Xavier's College is a microbiology professor who > has another experience with trying to build a taste for the 'mando' among > her young collegian singers. "From the time Fr. Eufemio Miranda began training a group to participate, we have > continued," says another lecturer of the college. "We have ample talent. All the musicians are from our college," says > Monteiro. "Fortunately, they do come (to participate)," says Ms Monteiro, when > asked whether the younger generation shows an interest in the 'mando'. > "Running a festival of this kind for 34 years is not a joke. I don't think many other groups have lasted for more than ten years. Maybe the Kala Academy and Konkani Academy have, but they have government funding," > says Rodrigues. > > Its early promotors was the Clube Nacionale (in 1965-67). Then the Konkani Bhasha Mandal took over, organising it two years by itself, and for another couple of years in association with the Clube Nacionale. Since the 7th year of the festivals -- in 1974 -- the Goa Cultural & Social Centre has been organising the event, annually without fail. This year's was the 34th festival of its kind. In some years in the 'sixties, seventies, and even eighties, the festival was held over two days in both > Margao and Panjim. > > In some years, the 'mando' festival saw as many as 24 groups taking part. Even in 1990 and 1991, the event was held at two separate venues. Organisers say putting up** the event costs between Rs 60,000 to 70,000.**(ENDS) ............................................................. When one looks at the funds needed to host a Mando festival and compares it to the grant of Rs.3.5 lakhs [three hundred and fifty thousand rupees] given by the Government of Goa to promote the film SHWAS for the Oscar award, or the amount spent in presenting the controversial KA production GOMANT DARSHAN during this year at KA, Rajiv Gandhi Ravindra Bhavan , Goa Sadan and other venues, it is easy to guage the opportunities that exist. Viva Goa. Miguel
