I attended an interesting workshop the other day at Olive Bandra by the Liverpool Institute for Performing Arts (LIPA)founded in 1995 by Sir Paul McCartney and Mark Featherstone-Witty. Mark Featherstone-Witty and Nick Booker & Meetu Soni of IndoGenius were conversation with outstanding musicians and performers of Mumbai as part of a workshop : “How to achieve your potential as a performer”.
Spotted: Sandhya Mridul, Cyrus Sahukar, DJ Pearl, VJ Nikhil Chinapa and Hermit Sethi (co founders Submerge), musician Ankur Tewari, actress Maya Sarao (of Patiala House fame), musician Sidd Coutto (of Tough On Tobacco), Jehan Johar, Arijit Dutta (of Airport), DJ Vishal Shetty who were all on the panel and supported by guests like Sapna Bhavnani, VJ Siddharth, DJ Ma Faiza and DJ Assad.
Message from Sir Paul McCartney: “Namaste India. I’m sorry I can’t be with you, but I’d like to say something. Mark and I are proud that the challenge we set ourselves some 15 years ago has delivered. The educational challenge was how to devise a curriculum that resulted in sustained employment. Last year, we noted that, three years after leaving us, 94% of our graduating students were in employment; 87% in the performing arts. The physical challenge was to turn the school George and I attended into a facility that could deliver the breadth of training that we do. Although British national Indian students have been a part of our student body for years, last year we welcomed our first Indian national. We hope that this is just the start and that some of your country’s young talent will join us and become a part of our story, as we will be a part of theirs.”
Check out the LIPA website: www.lipa.ac.uk