'Chhaya Shakuntalam' opens Bharat Rang Mahotsav 2014

The 16th edition of Bharat Rang Mahotsav kicked off here today with acclaimed director Kavaam Narayana Panikkar's adaptation of Kalidas's play "Abhijana Shakuntalam".
The event was inaugurated in presence of eminent Bengali theatre personality Manoj Mitra, who was the chief guest, and scholar Kamlesh Dutt Tripathi, the guest of honour.
The inauguration was presided over by Ratan Thiyam, chairman, National School of Drama Society and Waman Kendre, director, NSD, among others.
"Chhaya Shakuntalam" is a retelling of "Abhijana Shakuntalam" by the famous Hindi poet Udayan Vajpeyi. The piece in Hindi was presented by National School of Drama Repertory Company.
The 15-day festival is set to enthrall all theatre connoisseurs till January 19. This year's festival will highlight the various faces of Indian theatre and bring to the capital 71 performances by renowned theater groups from different parts of India and the world.

"NSD aims to bring together all the theatre people of India and abroad through Bharat Rang Mahotsav. Next time whole selection criteria will be changed in the manner of visiting personally to city to town to witness the best of the performances and select among them," Kendre said.

There are plays in about 17 languages of India from 16 states covering all major regions. There are a collection of plays from Israel, Sri Lanka, Japan, China, Poland and Germany.
To honour the contribution of the northeast and create a deeper dialogue with rest of the country and the world, a parallel festival of six plays will be held in Imphal and Guwahati from January 9 to 16.

"Integrating theatre from all parts of the nation and also taking them to varied audience have been an integral part of the vision of NSD for Bharat Rang Mahotsav. Northeast has a culturally rich and potentially strong theatre movement. Missing Bharat Rang Mahotsav's presence in the region will be a loss to the art and culture lovers of northeast. Hence, the parallel festival is targeted in the northeast this year," said Thiyam.