Theatre festival culminates successfully

After a successful run for the past 21 days, 20th Bharat Rang Mahotsav – the international theatre festival of India organized by the National School of Drama (NSD), drew to a colourful culmination on February 22, in the Capital with a pledge to come back next year with a more diverse repertoire. The closing ceremony was held at Kamani Auditorium where renowned Kathak maestro, Guru, Choreographer, and poet, Padma Vibhushan Pandit Birju Maharaj was the Chief Guest and Arun Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Culture was the Guest of Honour.

Dr Arjun Deo Charan, Acting Chairman, NSD Society presided over the ceremony. Suresh Sharma, Director In-Charge, National School of Drama, welcomed the chief guest and the guest of honour. A book on the collection of plays staged during the 20th BRM was also released on this occasion.

Token of thanks was presented by Abdul Latif Khatana, Associate Professor, Acting and Chief, Sanskaar Rang Toli.

The closing ceremony was followed by 'Dhumrapaan', a bilingual play directed by Akarsh Khurana and performed by the group D for Drama from Mumbai. The play is a comedy that takes a dig at the stressful corporate life and the toll it takes on the health of an individual.

Speaking at the occassion, Padma Vibhushan Pandit Birju Maharaj said, "It is important that we spread love and happiness. Much like art, we need people who appreciate art. I have a very close relationship with the National School of Drama and I'm very happy to come here today."

"I compliment NSD for this very successful organization of this festival in Delhi and five other cities. Theatre has a great potential to contribute to the GDP and create employment opportunities, especially for the youth. The Ministry is ready to provide platforms for discussions on addressing the economic plight of theatre artists and create a technology platform to facilitate mapping of the audience and electronic booking, among other things," stated Arun Goel, Secretary, Ministry of Culture.

Thanking the audience and guests for the overwhelming respose, Dr Arjun Deo Charan, Acting Chairman, NSD Society, said: "I thank Pandit Birju Maharaj and Arun Goel for taking out time from their busy schedule and come here today. As we end this year's festival today, I am sure that the audience has enjoyed the plays staged, appreciated them and thought over them afterward. This festival is a step forward and we are sure that you will keep on patronizing us in future."

"About 2000 young theatre enthusiasts from colleges in and around Delhi participated in this year's BRM and presented around 60 short plays. This is rather encouraging since young people have the appetite for risk and hence, give us hope to see new creative ventures," informed Suresh Sharma, Director In-Charge, National School of Drama (NSD).

The 20th BRM offered 111 national and international plays including folk and other traditional theatre forms, invitee plays, and productions by the students of NSD.

Apart from New Delhi, the NSD arranged parallel festivals of the 20th BRM in Dibrugarh, Varanasi, Ranchi, Mysore, and Rajkot.

There were 25 plays in Hindi, 16 plays in Bengali, five in Kannada, two plays in Marathi, Odia, Gujarati, Manipuri, Assamese and, Malayalam each. Besides, three plays in English were also performed along with one play each in Maithili, Telugu, Nepali, and Sanskrit. In addition, there were 15 foreign plays and 9 folk plays too.

Theatre productions from West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Karnataka, Manipur, to name a few, were performed at the festival. Moreover, international productions from Italy, Romania along with other countries also graced the festival.

In a separate category, this year's festival commemorated the 150th birth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi and staged four plays based on his philosophy and life.