On Sunday afternoon at CRIPA in Kalabhumi the atmosphere was filled with joyful noises of excited children, parents and friends. The Youth Choir led by Nuria and accompanied on piano by Matthew has shared with the community some popular songs chosen from some well known movies for children. The young audience was captivated and spellbound by the sound-track Cirlce of Life from the movie Lion King performed by the twenty-one members of the choir. Read more

A computer virus? A PC worm?? Not, this time real Trojan walked the soil of Auroville! The 6th grade students of Transition School performed one of the most famous events of the Greek mythology, the Trojan war. Gods, swords, kings, princess and a horse-unicorn is the recipe of the well attended play. The classic Greek tragedy is turned in an modern novel with mobile phones and rock songs. This choice made accessible the roots of the western culture to kids and teenagers. May be not a very classical interpretation but for sure we all had fun. Read more

The project of Lilaloka, 'the place to play' in Sanskrit, was founded thanks to the determination of five women with educational background. Neither school nor airy center or nursery, Lilaloka goes further, offering a new educational approach centered on the joy and the game. The future center will offer various activities for all children, promoting self-learning and avoiding the competition and judgment. Yvelise, one of the project holder, explain the meaning and the organization of Lilaloka. Contact: lilaloka@auroville.org.in Read more

Le projet de Lilaloka, 'l'endroit pour jouer" en Sanscrit, a vu le jour grace a la determination d'une poignee de femmes issues du milieu educatif. Ni ecole, ni centre aere, ni garderie, Lilaloka va plus loin, en offrant une nouvelle approche educationnelle centree sur la joie et le jeu. Le futur centre proposera des activites a tous les enfants, en favorisant l'auto apprentissage et en banissant la competition et le jugement. Sandrine, l'une des creatrices, nous eclaire sur le fonctionnement de Lilaloka. Contact : lilaloka@auroville.org.in Read more

Susmita, the producer of the documentary 'Sometimes I can fly' about accessibility, organized a talk with the teenagers of Future School and Alex, the Italian fellow in a wheel chair of the movie. After watching the documentary, the students seemed very interested by the topic and asked many questions, not only about how to make accessibility in Auroville but also about Alex's travels in India. They're very impressed by his courage. They even took pictures with him as a star, exchanged phone number and suggested to organize a dinner with him ! Read more

Last Sunday was a sporty day for Aurovillians! The first Auroville Athletics Meet took place at Dehashakti Sports Complex, next to Dana. Around 50 people registered, mainly teenagers of the school and their sport teacher. From 8 in the morning, they practised 100 m race, 800 m race and long jump before a good breakfast. At 5 pm, a fun race was organized with the feet linked together. Despite of the lack of participants, Rajeev, one of the coordinator, was satisfied of the enthusiam of youngers. He hopes that more adults will join next time. Read more

Auroville hosted the third annual India "Hat" tournament during the first three days in February. Sports fields where used across the whole of Auroville with the finals held at Certitude on Sunday afternoon. Big thanks to Mark who as organized this third annual tournament in Auroville. Ultimate Frisbee uses similar rules as Basketball to pass the disk between players and have a score zone at both ends of the field similar as American football. Most unique is that there is no referee and the players call themselves faults being made. Read more

With a great support of the children of the kindergarten, the Auroville Press and SAIIER released this week proudly the book “Building with blocks at Auroville Kindergarten” by Odile Fouldaoux. Besides illustrating and showing how children develop by the way they build with blocks and how their social skills evolve it is a book about children development through a beautiful playful instrument like natural wooden blocks in specific dimensions. Read more

The students from Lilith apprenticeship program have presented their collections in Kalabhumi in Auroville, on 19 January 2013. The event was a great success! A supportive and enthusiastic crowd cheered and applauded to the models and designers. The designers Leela, Dasha, Ilango and Suhasini presented their creations to an attentive audience of residents of Auroville and guests. In the following links you can see some images shot by Coriolan: www.flickr.com/photos/coriolan/sets/72157632562549538 --> VIDEO by Manohar  Read more

At Bla Bla Xmas Fair at Youth Center was still hot, and action in full swing when Anna hit the stage with ethnic songs, accompanied by Rolf and Johnatan. Not many words but couple of action oriented ethnic music, not so very well know to the joyful audience, but well appreciated anyhow. And what is Christmas if it is not for joyful sharing amongst each other, for sharing the festive spirit in light and love?

 

 

Blues was on the stage at Bla Bla Xmas Fair at Youth Center with Swaha and Rolf, swinging us into more mellow mood. And the temperatures were already droping a bit, bargains were almost done, children were exhausted of all the fun, the gadgets they have visited, actions they have participade in... after solid portion of blues annoucnments and callings for dinner were out, and the youngest started to depart from the site, and whole Fair was slowly shifting in to the evening tone and set of action painted in music.

As the highlight of the evening, Yemadas and Friends performed a great set of world music. Despite the late hour the people were dancing and some were even singing along with the musicians. The atmosphere was great and the selection of music and instruments varied from Brazilian over African to Indian inspired. Get a listen here. Read more

The Bla Bla Christmas Fare was a very special occasion for the workers of the Svaram music shop.

Svaram co-workers have been receiving training in playing music, and music theory ever since the beginning of the project from a succession of teachers, local and international. Many performances have been given in Auroville, India and even a few abroad.

 

The group's performance at the Fare, accompanied by a flute player, was a success, with catchy drum rhythms and the crowd dancing in front of the stage. Read more

At Youth Center Bla Bla Xmas Fair was in full swing, music rocking, children playing, running around and laughing, bigger children catching up with friends, bargaining were going on at the stall, food was smelling delicious ... it was just a time for a traditional Cake Competition. Following is the soundscape of almost an hour long tasting and judging of the cakes put on display by the members of the community. ..."Tasteful, but not for children, .. great looking but ..." And which one got the prize? Read more

This year name of the Christmas Fair - Bla Bla was in a way a reminder that although it is right that we do communicate in order to progress, we still need to transform the ideas and words into real action. And there was a lot of action, some old, but always popular, activities like bonger spronger, gyroscope, flying fox, and some new ones. At this point of the time in the afternoon Suryan with two guests shared some of the songs. Priscila, also with excellent voice, and a drummer of course brought some fresh dimensions. Read more

When the year comes around the community wouldn't be the same if it wouldn't be for the Christmas fair at Youth Center. A dedicated team of Tree House and Youth Center community with many volunteers have put lots of effort in this year's one. Many activities, stalls,corners...and of course the stage with its program rocking from early afternoon hours. Visiting South Korean students from Traveling School with their mentor Sonny shared traditional music of South Korea with the community with impressive beats, and the unique sound of the gong. Read more

In today's news we're featuring an excerpt of yesterday's presentation on Social Spaces on Crown Road, where Nicholas summarizes recommendations for social spaces in the area between Solar Kitchen and Arka....Following is phone interview with Abha, member of new L'Avenir d'Auroville on affordable houses. Christmas fair Bla Bla at Youth Center on Saturday between 2 to 10pm. The event of lightning recycling Christmas Tree at Pitanga on the same day is postponed on 29th. Tomorrow weaving Peace Shield at Unity Pavilion with Annette. Read more

A talk was held about 'How spaces in Auroville can be developed to reflect its spirit' by 10 second year students of urban and regional planning, from Queen's University. This project is being led by Dr. Ajay Aggarwal, who chose Auroville as the project site because the city is progressive in its views on sustainable development and intentional community building. The talk was held to discuss about this topic, before the students can give their final presentations... Read more

Welcome to the Sixth Edition of the Auroville Marathon! Auroville proudly presents you the Sixth edition of the Auroville Marathon on Sunday, February 10, 2013. Started in 2008, it has soon become one of the popular running events in India. In today's program, we speak to four people who help us in making the event special. Chandresh Patel, founder and Race Director of Auroville Marathon; Ram Viswanathan, who ran all full marathon in all 5 editions of the event; Rajesh Vetcha, founder, Hyderabad Runners and Santhosh, Coach, Runners High. Read more

Tamil Aurovilian Karthik shares about his life; his background, his education, his work and, his hopes and plans for the future. Residents' Assembly Service presents the next Collective Priorities and Values Action Meeting featuring Affordable Housing, Entry, Participatory Planning, Economy, Violence in Auroville and Disobedience of Decisions: a chance to participate, to become involved, to be part of the changes and the growth of this City the Earth Needs. Read more

IS Auroville an Eco-Village? This question is not a new one, but twice a year a group of students from North America come to Auroville to study on the university program Living Routes. They come each time fresh and curious, wanting to see what Auroville has to offer and struggle to understand the complexities alive on the ground here in Tamilnadu. Listen in with their lecture/discussion with Bindu and B, who were invited to discuss the topic with the students. Listen in for some critically-supportive academic discussion.

Philipp talks about not only the coming Christmas Fair to be held at the Youth Centre, but about the Youth Centre itself, having just recently returned from Brazil. The current condition of the place, the repairs that need to be done and getting people to participate in preparation for the Fair is what 's on his mind at this time. He points out that the Fair is but one day; it's the preparation and participation that counts, that makes for fun. Read more

Golden Water is a water purification project funded by Tom and Janet from Canada. It was founded by Nikadas and his wife Ranana about two years ago to address the restricted access to clean drinking water in Edyanchavadi village. With its sixty-thousand liter tank, Golden Water provides fresh, free drinking water for local children and families and water for a small fee to the other community locals. This tuesday they had a ceremony to celebrate with children from the New Colors evening school. Read more

Genius Incorporated Production at the third session of The Quiz Show have brought us to the Grand Finale on Saturday night at Visitor Centre. Game already familiar as well to the players as to the audience, which actively participated in the course of the event, again connected all in a deep sense of community. And as Wazo commented at one point :"..we are one, one body, one love, one soul...", and oneness in laughter... Since that it was the last in the series of the Quiz Shows many prizes were given out, and many thanks have been said. Read more

Values and Priorities meeting no.6 facilitated by Residents Assembly Service was set up for topic of planning, for all participants to discuss on near future since Auroville will celebrate its golden jubilee. How we want to proceed, and if there are any frictions in the community how to overcome them. Aim of this meeting was also to actively communicate with suggestions for the new L'AVenir d'Auroville/TDC 2012 2018 team. All agreed that we do not share, not communicate enough. Many in the community feel that we have gone astray from the path Read more

The OM Collective, a group of four young, creative and talented people from US, was invited to perform for Solitude's Friday night sushi extravanganza. This band was founded after four musicians, all students on the Living Routes program (Ty, Timothy, Trevor and Mitch) decided to collaborate their skills and present a live jam at the Solitude Farm last Friday. The perfomance started with some nice solo guitar songs by Trevor and Mitch and continued with awesome live jaming and conscious hip-hop lyrics by Ty with djembe percussion by Timothy. Read more

Last Friday at Solitude Farm, Aurovilian musician and a wonderful guitar player Ashaman gave a live music performance with some classical guitar melodies from Brazil and Spain. The audience was enjoying a special Krishna's vegan sushi dinner. While Ashaman provided a beautiful and warm sound atmosphere and near the end Suresh, Aurovilian percussionist, accompanied him so perfectly! Read more

To conclude summer holidays Lisa wanted to share some of her favorites songs with friends and community, expressing what she pursues in her studies in Holland. Lisa, with exquisite voice, heading in a soul direction, was accompanied by Matt on keyboards and saxophone, Martin and Holger on classical guitar; Jonas and Tina joined in a couple of songs. As music is about emotions, feelings, the songs lulled us into those zones, where the only right thing is to be with friends, family and loved ones. Read more

We have interviewed five students who have been doing the community service this year. The community service is a program thats run by Future school. In this program the first year students have to do three weeks of participating in three Auroville units and services. The idea of community service is for the children to have some experience working in Auroville units and not getting paid!!! While interviewing these children we realized that most of them liked this experience and found it useful. Read more

Michaels came to Auroville one year ago to be a volunteer and now he is working at SAVI at Unity Pavilion in International Zone. He is helping the other volunteers for long term commitments - like welcome and registration when arriving in Auroville, or introductory seminar to discover and understand Auroville. He is also very much enthusiastic, with some ideas how to extend the field of action of Auroville around the world and, why not, to create others communities like Auroville. Read more