Clowning, puppetry at Contemporary Arts Week, 2016

The fourth edition of 'Contemporary Arts Week' has brought poetry slams, puppet shows, stand up comedy, music and dance performances by over 450 artistes under one roof here.
The seven-day-festival which began on October 16 is being held at fifteen different venues across Delhi NCR - DLF Cyber Hub, Instituto Cervantes, Sangeet Shymala, Lok Kala Manch, Korean Cultural Centre, Zorba the Buddha among others.
An initiative taken by NGO- 'Friends of Art', the festival seeks to provide contemporary artistes across different genres a platform to showcase their talents.
"We organise this festival with a motive to provide a platform for artists and like-minded people to come together and celebrate contemporary arts.

"The initiative is an effort to encourage audiences to explore a variety of different arts. By bringing together artists under one roof, we hope to engage the audience with the artistic talents that our country has to offer across different genres," says Shohini Dutta, co-founder, Contemporary Arts Week.
With a host of unique themes, the festival incorporates art forms such as dance, music, theater, mime along with visual arts, photography, short films, stand-up, mixed media and street art.

This year the festival has also included a series of short films based on themes like lives of taxi drivers and family relationships among others.

"We have included short movies this year which we haven't done before. It is a form of art which documents and captures the expressions very well. The films will be shown in open spaces where anybody can come join us," says Dutta.
The films will be shown at the Korean Centre and DLF Cyber hub.
The festival has also introduced a couple of initiatives including a 'personal artist interaction', 'make your own street art graffiti' and 'finger painting'.
"The reason we organised the festival at different locations was we wanted the performances to be accessible for everybody. We have also organised several events where people can interact with the artistes and participate in the events," says Dutta.

Art connoisseurs will get to watch performances by Hari and Sukhmani Experience (music), The Chrysalis Project(dance), Carte Blanche(mixed media), Basanti aur Rahza(music), flying solo(dance), comedy night (stand up), Drum Circle, Circus acts and many more throughout the week.
"We are trying to redefine what the 'contemporary' means through this festival. That's why we curated the event which could present 'folk' or 'sufi' in a different way. There is a lot of rich cultural heritage which needs to be promoted," says Dutta.
The opening day of the festival witnessed scintillating performances by Shilpa Rao, Akhil Sachdeva, Kutle Khan among others.
The festival will continue till October 22.