Relishing art in all its forms

The national Capital is gearing up for the upcoming Art festival at India International Centre where performances in different genres of music, dance and theatre along with photo exhibition and art exhibition will be held. 

The festival which begins on October 30, will have musical performances from genres such as Baroque, Jazz, Qawwali and Sufi. Dance forms like Kathakali will be showcased; plays like Ateetki Parchhaiyan, Waiting for Quixote and dance dramas will be performed. 

Baees Khwaja ki Chaukhat: Celebrating the Sufi Heritage of Delhi will be performed on October 30 with Ustad Chand Afzal and his group, where they will present an evening of Qawwalis from the Sufi shrines of the city. The chief guest will be Soli J Sorabjee and the event will be held  at the Fountain Lawns of IIC.

The exhibition called Portraits of Childhood will be inaugurated on October 30 and will showcase nine life-size sculptures of children, by Christine Margotin, who explores the concept of childhood and examines what characterises this stage of life. 

Young German Photographers is an exhibition curated from the Ostkreuz School of Photography, Berlin. The five photographers whose works will be showcased from October 30 are Aras Goekten, Katarzyna Mazur, Katharina Ira Allenberg, Torben Geeck and Yana Wernicke. The exhibition provides an insight into the work of five young photographers from Germany, their aesthetics, and photography practices.

The Chrystal Farrell Ensemble, the band from Goa will perform the different sub-genres in jazz and Jazz-influenced music. So, you’ll find a few jazz standards, new age swing and post-modern jazz grooves, with a dash of funk-laden originals on October 31 at IIC’s Fountain lawns.

A scene from the epic Mahabharata where Duryodhana is killed, is considered among the best in the entire Kathakali repertoire. Duryodhana Vadham, the dance drama in collaboration with Sangeet Natak Akademi, will be performed on November 1. It takes off from the well-known scene of the game of dice and the encounter between the Pandavas and Kauravas. Presented by Guru Sadanam Balakrishnan, it is one of the most dramatic scenes on the Kathakali stage.

Yellowcat Theatre’s take on the original story of Don Quixote and his adventures with his side-kick Sancho Panza. In a world filled with injustice and iniquity, a gentleman farmer is forced to take up arms and transforms into a knight-errant to defend the helpless and destroy the wicked. Waiting for Quixote will be performed on November 2 at Fountain lawns.

Concert of baroque music in collaboration with Hungarian Information & Cultural Centre will be performed by HaydnBaryton Trio Budapest on November 3. The Haydn Baryton Trio Budapest was founded by Kakuk Balázs in 1980 to revive Joseph Haydn’s 200-odd compositions for baryton. The Trio performs across the globe.

Ateetki Parchhaiyan (Reflections on the Mahabharata Saga) which will be performed on November 4, is an epic which portrays the full spectrum of human life — its ambitions, its aspirations and its inevitable frustrations. It is a dance drama directed by Dr Shama Bhate from Nad-Roop.

Hence, with all the variety of cultural event that IIC has to offer in this  festive season, one can simply select the desired event and  have a nice time with friends and family.