New Delhi, Sep 29: More than a 100
artistes from India and abroad performed together to tastefully coordinated
choreography that unveiled a grand range of aesthetics, ringing down curtains
on the SAARC Cultural Festival on Traditional Dances of South Asia in the
capital.
Clad in their ethnic costumes,
dancers, instrumentalists and musicians, totalling 105 from SAARC
member-states, brought out the regional individuality along with the spirit of
togetherness as the three-day event held at the Sangeet Natak Akademi here
concluded on Sunday evening highlighting the scope of cross-border cultural
cooperation.
Colombo-based SAARC Cultural Centre
(SCC), which organised the Sep 26-28 extravaganza featuring stage shows and
demonstration of performing arts, besides a symposium on intangible cultural
heritage (ICH) and a photo exhibition by SNA, hailed the get-together as a
giant stride in furthering contact between the people of the eight-nation
grouping: Afghanistan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, the Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan
and Sri Lanka.
“Each SAARC nation has its own
cultural uniqueness that can match with the eminence of any other country of
the world,” said SSC Director GLW Samarasinghe at the valedictory function that
saw a confluence of art forms ranging from Sri Lanka’s Kandy dance to
Afghanistan’s Mili Atan songs to Bottle Dance of hilly Bangladesh, besides India’s
Chhau, Manipuri and Sattriya from the east alongside Kathakali and chenda
ensemble from the south.
All the participating SAARC artistes
were given away certificates by SNA Secretary Helen Acharya at the concluding
function, which also felicitated Sri Lankan High Commissioner to India Prof.
Sudharshan Seneviratne, SNA vice-chairperson Shanta Serbjeet Singh and Kathak
danseuse Manjushree Chatterjee.
A 100-minute cultural show of six
SAARC nations followed, culminating in a brief and breezy spectacle which
brought all the artistes on to a single stage. The 20-minute item received loud
cheers from the packed audience at Meghdoot gallery of Rabindra Bhavan that
houses the 1952-established SNA.
On Saturday, an international seminar
held as part of the festival stressed the need for SAARC nations owning a
shared database on the ICH of South Asia so as to locate the region’s cultural
components, pool them onto a platform and facilitate their exchange between
people and transmission down generations.
The day-long seminar on ‘Intangible
Cultural Heritage in the Context of SAARC’ was addressed by Art Scholar Dr
Sudha Gopalakrishnan and moderated by SAARC Culture Centre Director Dr Sanjay
Garg. It also saw demonstrations of eastern India’s Seraikella Chhau (Shashadhar
Acharya) and followed by Sri Lankan dances besides Koodiyattam presentation
(Sangeeth Chakyar) from Kerala.
Community participation is one key to
such an initiative, but it would require an atmosphere where the youth is
encouraged to carry on hereditary knowledge and skills, speakers at the
workshop in the capital on ‘Intangible Cultural Heritage in the Context of SAARC’
pointed out.
The festival began on Friday evening
with the staging of traditional dances of SAARC nations. The two-hour
programmes saw the presentation of Mili Atan and Karsak recitals from
Afghanistan, bottle dance and Jhoom from Bangaldesh, welcome songs of Bhutan,
Manjushree dance and Puja of Nepal and Kandyan dance from Sri Lanka, besides
Chhau dance (Seraikella and Purulia varieties), Dhol Cholam (Manipur) and
Kathakali (Kerala). Fresh items from their traditional repertoire found stage
depiction on Sunday.
The festival, which followed the Third
Meeting of SAARC Ministers of Culture here last week, also hosted a photo
exhibition which essayed the shared history of artistic cooperation between the
South Asian nations in the past five decades.
The three-day photo exhibition at SNA
lawns mounted169 photos that threw light on select cultural events that the
national-level institution has hosted since 1958 till recently — all of them
exclusively featuring the SAARC countries.
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