Founded with the intention to be Bengaluru’s version of the Edinburgh Fringe Festival, serving up a variety of experiences across the arts for locals and visitors alike, BLR Hubba, organised by the Unboxing BLR Foundation, is back for a third edition, bigger than ever before, with over 350 events across 30 venues. “What’s different this year is we have expanded the extent of activities. From seven sub-festivals, we’ve gone to 12, with the new ones being nataka hubba for theatre, nartisu hubba for dance, anubhava hubba for experiential events, makkala hubba for children, and churumuri hubba, which is a mixed bag of offbeat programming that’s edgy and experimental,” explains V Ravichandar, the chief facilitator of Blr Hubba.
This time, Freedom Park has emerged as a new venue for the children’s festival, the newly-introduced makkala hubba featuring activities that get kids to play, craft and explore. “Our public places have changed for children with over-concretisation, so throughout 14 installations for children at the park, we wanted to do something that would be hugely stimulating, entertaining and different for children. We’re also getting government school children to come by and experience it to make it inclusive,” says Ravichandar.
“Eighty per cent of the programming is unique or will be in Bengaluru for the first time,” he says, including American metal guitarist Marty Friedman who will be headlining the music sub-festival ‘Kantha’, with a few familiar, well-known acts like The Manganiyar Seduction sprinkled in. Even among the names familiar to Bengalureans, Ravichandar notes that the acts themselves may be something new, saying, “Kaushiki Chakraborty sings in Bengaluru often and is a very well-known Hindustani singer but you will see a very different side of her, experimenting and innovating with Shantanu Moitra in ‘Pankh’.”
The anubhava hubba, featuring immersive experiences, is something to keep an eye on, according to Ravichandar, who says, “The key difference of anubhava hubba is that the audience is a participant, they’re not just a consumer of what is put up on stage. One thing I find interesting is ‘First-Hand’ by Nitish Jain, an artist from Prague, who is a specialist in immersive experiences. You leave your phone behind and the 90- minute experience will heighten all five senses. It is deeply reflective,” he says.
Apart from the five new sub-festival additions, others include futures hubba, featuring events that are innovation-focussed or explore questions of the future we are building, vishesha hubba celebrating Karnataka’s arts, speaklore hubba, highlighting oral art forms, rasthe hubba which takes performances to different neighbourhood streets, thindi hubba to savour and learn about street food and kala hubba featuring visual art.
(Free passes will offer entry on a first-come first-served basis, while donor passes – between ₹250 and ₹450 – guarantee entry. Tickets available on blrhubba.in)