Desi Today Magazine
In an interview with Desi Today Tarun Nayar, Executive Director of 5X Fest, talks about 5X’s role in promoting local South Asian artists.
Tarun Nayar, is a DJ/producer and tabla player based in Vancouver and has toured the world with his band Delhi 2 Dublin. Along with a passion to produce music, Tarun has a greater passion to promote fresh talent. He has played an important role in organizing and directing various cultural festivals of Lower Mainland.He is on the board of Vancouver’s New Forms Festival, the Canadian Live Music Association, and a member of BC’s Ministry of Education Advisory Committee, Vancouver’s Music City Task Force, and Vancouver’s 2018 JUNO Host City Committee. In his current role as the Executive Director of 5X Fest, Tarun wants to turn the eyes of the world towards budding local South Asian talent in the Lower Mainland. Whether as a musician or a promoter, he is an advocate for diversity and equality in the entertainment industry.
You are a musician who tours around the world with his band. How has the pandemic impacted your work?
The band Delhi to Dublin is primarily a touring project. Now that being on halt, we are busy working with our record label Snakes x Ladders that promotesa new wave of hybrid South Asian artists. We are also moving forward with our 5X Festival.
Tell us about your association with 5X Fest. How did this idea originate?
My relation with the parent organization, VIBC (Vancouver International Bhangra Celebration) goes a long way. VIBC was founded in 2004 when a couple of young Punjabi-decent kids came together to increase the impact of Punjabi culture on mainstream Vancouver culture. At one time, and this is hard to believe, Vancouver Bhangra music was not widely known. But now it’s everywhere – hockey games, festivals, etc. VIBC played an important role in making that happen. I was involved in all sorts of work with VIBC from hosting and DJing to artistic curations over many different events. After successfully putting Punjabi music and culture on the map of Vancouver, a new direction was required. It was not enough to spread Bhangra music because a lot of schools and organizations in Surrey were doing that.
We decided not to confine ourselves to Bhangra but to showcase best of art, music, film and fashion. Inspired by SXSW and Afropunk, we officially launched the South Asian millennial festival 5X Fest in 2018. The vision for us was to create a platform for local artists. Surrey has an immense pool of local talent. I see 100s of young South Asian kids doing amazingly creative work. But in spite of all this Surrey still gets bad rep. The only stories the media wants to tell is about gangs, shootings, and violence. I think we should focus on the story on the strong creative vibe coming from Surrey. The story will be compelling for South Asians around the globe. I think we should bring our community together and create a global stage.
So many festivals already exist in the cultural scene of Vancouver. In fact you have been associated with many of them, so what is unique about 5X?
What’s unique about 5X is that it is created for the youth and by the youth. Our target demographic is youth aged between 16 to 35. We push forward the artists who want to push the boundaries set by the older generation. We deliberately walk into the issues of sexuality, gender, race and religion to open discussions. A lot of time, the South Asian young generation is at contention with the older generation that closes its eyes to the real challenges essentially stopping our youth from being their own self. The older generation censors what their kids, nieces, nephews are allowed to listen to, who they are allowed to date, etc.
We, on the other hand, create a safe space for the youth where they can be themselves. We do not judge but just promote them for who they are. We do not censor, we provoke. We challenge audiences to open their minds to other ways of life and other perspectives. Everything is up for conversation. As South Asians with complex identities, our goal is to stimulate free and liberated artistic expression of our lived realities.
How is the community’s response so far?
It’s been amazing. The previous version of the festival had 1000 people coming for our party and when we changed to 5X we had 15,000 people come out to see artists like JS Dhami, Rupi Kaur, Raja Kumari, Jasmine Sandlas, Mickey Singh and more. We were working with the City of Surrey to organize a much bigger festival this year. Finding solutions that would allow us to stream our festival in other countries, was also in our mind. There areapproximately 210 million South Asian millennials in North America and India alone; we want to unite and evolve our community beyond physical boundaries. Then the pandemic hit and it fast tracked the evolution of our format to move online. From that came the5X: Race to the Stageapp. Our team that was working on the festival moved to working on a virtual festival. The transition was really remarkable. Most of our staff is under 25, and women. It is so exciting to work with these young creators and entrepreneurs.
How is 5X different from other music fests that are already live-streaming on various social media sites?
We didn’t want to do a live stream. People are already fatigued of watching all this stuff. So we were thinking of combining real life with the virtual performances. We were able to partner with global wellness and fan engagement platform Stepathlon based in Mumbai. They were extremely generous with their response and designed the 5X app. They were aware of the challenges and allowed us to turn our festival into a virtual version.
Tell us about the app.
5X: Race to the Stage gathered festival-goers worldwide to move around a virtual world through real-life steps and activities (yoga, dancing, meditation) combined with gamification and engagement (daily contests, challenges and events). By downloading the app, festival-goers immersed themselves in a virtual world, exploring 40+ stages located across the globe, featuring concerts, performances and 60+ of their favourite local and international creators to complete their journey and arrive at the 5X Mainstage. This is a big experiment.
What was the need to combine physical activity with a cultural festival content?
Physical activity is the basis of the Stepathlon technology. When COVID arrived, it was important to stay mentally and physically healthy. 5X: Race to the Stage embraces movement, creativity and mental health as its three key pillars of overall well-being, which are increasingly important in a time of self-isolation, quarantines and lockdowns. More than ever, there is real desire for music, fun, creative outlets and connection. This is particularly true for many of the tens of thousands of South Asian international students, who have found themselves stranded and isolated throughout North America at this time.
What do you want participants to take from this fest?
I want people to walk away with a sense of pride for the place we live in. It is amazing and full of talent. It has rich history of Jazzy B, Manmohan Warris, Kamal Aujla, and people like Harbhajan Mann spending considerable time here. But we are not doing a very good job of claiming this wonderful place. If we can change the public perception about this place which is full of creativity. I want to cultivate the idea to support local talent. We have extremely rich diverse cultural community here. I think we will have success, if in next couple of years these artists take on world stage.
Such an inspiring website!