The afternoon sun is at its hilt on Valentine’s Day. At Phoenix Marketcity mall, a gentle wind blows and clouds float along; trees sway in the wind and under their shade couples dressed for dates rest awhile. Out of the silence, suddenly, a violin screams a violent call. Loud beats of electronica drop in answer and instantly, crowds flock toward a large screen showing Grammy winner L. Shenkar playing the heart out of his double-necked violin, head bobbing to DJ Savio’s beats. It’s a bit incongruous at first, to listen to fusion electronica under broad daylight, with not a soul but Savio dancing to the music. But, as you settle into a chair at the third edition of the two-day Global Isai Festival, watch jasmine-adorned women and veshti-wrapped men tap their feet to techno, you know Isai’s struck home with its aim: to draw the unsuspecting wanderer into the adventures of world music.
The line-up this year is as mixed bag as it gets. For example, there’s Japanese rock band Gleam for Dream singing a blend of Japanese and English, Australian DJ and producer Astro Black, and France-based trio Nyna Vales led by singer Nathalie Carudel, all performing alongside an unusual assortment of Indian artistes, such as singer-songwriter SuVi Suresh and dance-music act TaalAtma, helmed by Kathak dancer Aditi Bhagwat twisting and twirling to live sitar-and-percussion accompaniment. Hang around long enough at the Festival, and you’ll quickly realise few have turned up there for the music itself, but end up staying, seduced by the music they’re introduced to. Next to the stage, a group of college girls accosts the ripped-jeans-clad, salt-and-pepper haired lead vocalist of French progressive-rock band Nazca. He’s just closed a power-drenched performance largely spent bouncing on the stage monitors, growling about everything from love lost to his little son.
Right beside the sound console, five women with voluminous Afros get mobbed by a bunch of boys for selfies. Barely half an hour later, the same women take centrestage, this time dressed in flowing white costumes, armed with an array of percussion instruments — shakers, marimbas, djembes, cymbals. At once singing in five-part harmony, drumming and dancing, they’re Simangavole from the French Reunion Islands, singing in Reunion Creole, about love, hope, joy and slavery. No one understands a word, but it’s a primal call to dance with the most basic of human instruments — the voice and percussion — that the crowds just can’t resist. In seconds, they’re on their feet imitating Simangavole’s dervish-like moves, until security descends on them, shushing everyone back into their seats.
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Grace Barbe, Seychelles-born singer with her band based in Australia, sashays onto stage with a bass guitar in hand, belts out in her guttural voice five lines of Latin-influenced reggae in Afro-Creole, and the crowds are back dancing beside the stage again. As accomplished a bass soloist as she is a vocalist, Grace sings stories of the women on her island, who’re proud of their voluptuous bodies, and capable of reducing their “naughty, drunk men” to pulp. By now the sky has blackened, wafts of fried chicken float in the air, and the winds have a slight chill to them, but the crowd at Isai has only thickened, with spectators from the construction site next door, and at Phoenix’s galleries, all watching the show unfold. Testimony enough to the enticing power of music.