Indian art, culture festival to be held in Australia

India's art and culture will be on display during the first ever 'Festival of India' to be held across Australia in August.
Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Brisbane and Canberra will witness severalplatforms of creativity, the festival will throw light on classical,contemporary and new experimental India, according tothe Indian High Commissioner Navdeep Suri.
The four monthlong festival has been carefully designed tocreate an apatite for the Indian classical and contemporary arts which so far had verylittle exposure in artscommunity here, Suri said.
Thefestival was a public private initiative involving Indian government in association withAustralia'sfederal, state governments and some largeprivate organisations.
Itwould feature performances by renonwned groups and performers from IndialikeNirtyagram,Kalakshetra, Manipuri'sPung cholom,Odissi dancer Sujatha Mahopatra, Sofi gospel project ofSonamKalra, Raghu Dixit's Rock music with folk flavour, an artwork ofMumbai basedarchitectBijoy Jain, acartoon exhibition by Ajit Ninan, Shakespeare's Twelfth Night ofPiya Bheropia, puppet performance of Transposition, and also severallocal performances.

"The idea is to reach out not only to Indian diaspora but to thewidest community ofAustralianart lovers and those who matter in Australia," Suri said.

In a bid to give more exposure to the programme, the festivalhas been tied up with other majorAustralian festivals.
"We have tied up withOzasia festival in Adelaide whichwill open with Indian performances ofPiya Bheropia, Pung Cholomand Raghu Dixit," Suri said, addingthat similar work was being done in other cities.
"This will make sure that there will be clear Indian preeminence in thisAdelaide festival," he added.
The festival will be officially launched in Sydney next month.