The Friday List: From a one-of-a-kind museum biennale to a ballet screening, your weekly calendar of virtual events

— Compiled by Aishwarya Sahasrabudhe It was this very month last year that the coronavirus crisis induced a lockdown, turning our lives inwards. A year later, COVID-19 is far from over but what it has led to is the emergence of a new way of consuming all kinds of content. Over the last 12 months, there has been an exponential spike in the number of digital events and a considerable shift in the way we approach entertainment. There continues to be a steady stream of online events coming our way, although some theatres and cultural spaces have in fact opened up, making our leisure time a largely virtual experience. So even as we have eased out of the more stringent of restrictions, the landscape of our engagements and weekly dosages of entertainment continues to be moderated digitally, through the screen. Every Friday, we’ll bring you a curated list of online experiences — performances, talks, tours, screenings — to mark on your weekly calendar. On this week’s #FridayList: a museum biennale, a concert celebrating north eastern music and Disney+Hotstar’s sci-fi show, Ok Computer. — Music and dance The Royal Opera House, UK will be streaming a performance of  Kenneth MacMillan’s Concerto brought about by The Royal Ballet, this Friday. The concerto was created in 1966 for Berlin’s Deutsche Opera Ballet and is made up of energetic sequences which include a corps de ballet or a group performance as well as some lyrical pas de deux (duet) that beautifully reflect the contrasting moods of the composition. One of MacMillan’s most celebrated creations, the Concerto performance from 2019 will feature Royal Ballet First Soloist’s Anna Rose O’Sullivan along with James Hay and Mayara Magri among others. To know more and get your tickets, click here. When: 27 March For six days starting this weekend, the National Centre for Performing Arts (NCPA), Mumbai and Citi will be screening a curated list of recitals and concerts which includes some of the most acclaimed musicians, vocalists and composers of our time. From an excerpt from the Aadi Anant Festival featuring Zakir Hussain with V Selvaganesh, Deepak Bhatt and Niladri Kumar among others to a concerto by the Symphony Orchestra of India (SOI) performing Rimsky-Korsakov’s Scheherazade the NCPA-Citi Online Edition brings forth a host of wonderfully pieced together concerts that explore the facets of both, Indian and western musical traditions. Tune in to the six-day long music extravaganza to get your fill of some immersive notes and melodious renditions. When: 28 March to 2 April Where: NCPA, Mumbai’s YouTube channel/ Facebook page To celebrate World Music Day this Saturday, Royal Opera House, Mumbai has brought forth a screening of an event that marks this occasion in Kohima, Nagaland. What promises to be a really exciting and fun concert, this is in fact one of North East India’s largest celebrations of music featuring some of the leading artists from the region. The musicians and artists will all be seen taking to the virtual stage together for a performance that promises to showcase some of the finest renditions of the musical traditions of this region and is definitely a must attend for all music aficionados. When: 27 March Where: Royal Opera House, Mumbai’s YouTube channel — Talks In a lecture-presentation, followed by a QnA, art historian, Annapurna Garimella is set to talk about the Gandhian philosophy of architecture and how it can play out in the contemporary world. Through the session, she will elaborate on the emergence of Gandian concepts of finitude and limits against the grain of infinite developmentalist growth. Moderated by architectural historian Venugopal Maddipati, the talk is an attempt to answer questions pertaining to Gandhi’s architectural philosophy, how it reconciles with his conservatism and how Indian architecture can explore his ideology in practice. A Time for Low-Cost Housing is a session that deals at once with the metaphysical and theoretical aspects of the housing crisis in India. To know more and register, click here. When: 31 March (6.30 pm) [caption id=“attachment_9462281” align=“alignnone” width=“640”] From the screening of Concerto by Royal Opera House to Netflix’s Pagglait and Disney+Hotstar’s sci-fi series Ok Computer, a list of virtual engagements for this week. (Left) Image via Facebook@RoyalOperaHouse[/caption] — Virtual plays In keeping with its ongoing virtual series, Drama. Discourse. Dialogue. Prakriti Foundation will be screening a play from Manjula Padmanabhan’s collected Volume 2: Laughter and Blood, evoking conversations and insight into the director’s vision and the playwright’s writing. The screening of Know the Truth, directed by Shubham Chaudhary will be followed by a discussion moderated by V Balakrishnan to cast a spotlight on how the excerpt was brought about and a retrospective that ponders on the writing process. To know more and attend the session, visit Prakriti Foundation’s Facebook page When: 27 March (7 pm) Unshared Childhoods: A Virtual Interactive Performance is a hybrid, live and virtual play, happening simultaneously in both spaces in what is an imaginative audience-led experiment. A collaborative by the Harkat Virtual Interactive Stage, the play transcends mediums and the concept of a stage to explore topics taken from teenage party games to  Gabriel García Márquez’s short stories and messages in bottles that float on the waves to create not just a story but an experience that is at once exploratory and cathartic. The performance dives into the connections between empathy and love drawn from crowdsourced letters which are filled with real-life experiences of love, loss, trauma and heartbreak. Participate in what is sure to be a thoroughly engrossing and a somewhat surreal act of attending a play. To know more and get your ticket, click here. When: 28 March (4.30 pm) A courtroom drama that unfolds as a commentary on the thought processes of an individual and system is set to be screened this weekend by the theatre society Yakshagna. The trial in the play revolves around a multiple homicide case, an incident which sparks unrest across the country. Through the course of the court proceedings, what unravel are not only the minute details of the crime in itself but also the socio-political influences that shape individuals and the systems that govern our understanding of ourselves and of society. Tune in to watch Not the Stamp, a performance that is sure to be a dramatic and equally insightful take on crime and its consequences. To know more and get your ticket for this weekend’s show, click here. When: 28 March (4 pm) — Virtual museum In a first, The Bihar Museum has brought about a highly enriching virtual experience, the Bihar Museum Biennale in which a host of museums from across the country will be participating to create a richly intellectual and engaging experience for attendees. Spread over the course of eight days, the biennale flagged off on 22 March and has been hosting conferences, talks, workshops and masterclasses on a number of topics including cultural iconography in museums, the elements of a museum and the impact of the pandemic on these spaces. Over the course of the weekend, the festival has scheduled masterclasses by Ira Mukhoty, Manu Pillai and Padmashri Shovana Narayan among others along with virtual tours of museums like the Kanha Museum of Life and Art and Museum of Goa, Bardez. Participate in this virtual celebration of culture and art for this is sure to be a very stimulating experience. To know more and book your spot for weekend sessions, click here. When: 22 March to 28 March — Streaming this week Arriving on Netflix this Friday is Pagglait, featuring Sanya Malhotra in the lead. Directed by Umesh Bist, the film follows the story of a freshly widowed young girl, Sandhya, essayed by Malhotra, who simply cannot bring herself to grieve for her dead husband. She cannot cry or express her sorrow to her family and when a startling discovery about the money her husband left behind for her comes to light, she must also deal with the consequences it might have on her relationship with her in-laws. Filled with quirky characters and their curious motives, Pagglait is a heartwarming drama which reveals in a very light hearted way the workings of a middle class family in crisis. When: 26 March Where: Netflix

An upcoming film on Zee5 will see Manoj Bajpayee once again in the role of a cop, investigating a high profile murder. When the daughter of a high profile judge is found dead, there are high stakes and big names involved in the list of suspects. ACP Avinash Verma, played by Bajpayee steps in to solve the case and clues lead him to a slimy politician’s home. Suspense, intrigue and thrill are all ample in Silence… Can You Hear It? making it a perfect fit for a stay at home movie night. When: 26 March Where: Zee5 An upcoming Amazon Prime Video film is sure to be a wonderfully entertaining experience which clubs superhero adventure with a healthy helping of family drama. Invincible is about a 17-year-old boy whose father is a powerful superhero and after his birthday, he too expects to develop his own superpowers. Tons of adventures and fun follow when he begins training how to be a superhero under his father and in the process discovers what kind of a hero he himself wants to be. A lighthearted comedy and drama based on a very well known comic, the film is definitely one to catch this weekend. When: 26 March Where: Amazon Prime Video A new series coming up on Disney+Hotstar marks a bold foray of Indian television into sci-fi fantasy with a comedic and dramatic spin. Ok Computer, featuring Radhika Apte, Vijay Varma and Jackie Shroff among others is set in 2031, an age of drones and supercomputers and smart towering holograms. In this world of high tech and artificial intelligence, a retired detective is asked to get back to his office to investigate how a self driving taxi was hacked to kill a human. The cyber crime detective must dust off his skills to discover the motive behind the crime and nab the perpetrator. What is sure to be a thoroughly entertaining show, this sci-fi series makes for an ideal binge watch on the weekend. When: 26 March Where: Disney+Hotstar Also read —  Coronavirus outbreak: A database of books, performances, courses available online in these times of social distancing