Over 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.
