The 11th International Children’s Festival of Performing Arts creates a confluence of Polish, Russian, Lithuanian and Romanian art forms on one stage.
On her maiden journey from Lithuania to Delhi for the 11th International Children’s Festival of Performing Arts, 16-year-old Julija Kuliviciutë had two wishes. She wanted to sample the spicy food that she’d heard so much about on television shows like the Masterchef series. Two, she wanted to increase the number of her Facebook friends by several hundred. Both tasks were successfully accomplished, she admits, with a hint of pride.
“Since this is the farthest that I’ve ever travelled for a festival I was anxious, but the experience has been fantastic,” she says, beaming and trying to catch her breath after returning from a two-hour-long rehearsal. Part of the folk dance and song group Ugnele from the Lithuanian Children and Youth Center — a group founded in 1954 — Kuliviciutë describes their performance as “no words, only movement”, comprising an orchestra of traditional Lithuanian instruments. The members of the ensemble are students between the ages of three and 19 and have already performed at several concerts in Lithuania and the Baltic States.
This year, in a production titled Doors, Ugnele has paid tribute to the music of the 1960s and 1970s such as that of groups like The Doors, T-Rex, and of course, The Beatles.
“In order to understand the spirit of those times and to design the costumes, we looked through our family photographs as well as those of famous Lithuanian artists,” says Evelina Kotryna Griniutë, 17, another member of Ugnele. They have also hoped to answer another question through their performance — how did Soviet culture influence their identity?
Staying with their host family, whose children are students of Delhi’s Ryan International School, the Lithuanian performers enjoyed visiting the Akshardham Temple, Worlds of Wonder amusement park in Noida and Janpath. Their host, Ankita Batra, a 10th-standard student, confesses to having an “extremely engaging time” entertaining her guests.
Organised by the Ryan Foundation, in association with the Indian Council for Cultural Relations and National Bal Bhawan, the four-day-long festival this year has hosted performances by 30 international groups from Germany, Romania and Poland, among others, with over 15,000 participants and 40,000 spectators. What’s more, this is the first year that the festival has been thrown open to the public. Entry is free of charge.
Spread across five venues across the city, such as the Shri Ram Centre, India Habitat Centre, Little Theatre Group, National Bal Bhawan and Talkatora Stadium, the festival seeks to “sensitise children to cultural differences and influences,” believes festival director Utkarsh Marwah. He also hopes that by witnessing international performances by the Studio “M” Balet Opera Nationala Bucuresti from Romania and the Polish folk dances of “Pryzoda”, the Indian students will realise that there is more to dance than just Bollywood jhatkas.
The opening ceremony, which was held on December 8, began with a theatrical morning parade from Ambedkar Stadium to National Bal Bhawan. To “create a world without violence and war”, the participants marched together, singing and shouting slogans, voicing their hope for a more peaceful world. While the puppet show directed by Anurupa Roy received great applause, the India Shining ballet production, choreographed by Tushar Kalia, depicted the various problems marring progress in the country today.
Though Marwah extolled all the international performances, he gave special mention to performers from Latvia, Russia and Sri Lanka. The Latvian performers enacted the history of their crop-growing and cattle-breeding ancestors, displaying agility and strength with great pride, in an act called Work Praises Doer. The Russian group dances celebrated Tatar national dance, which is a form of traditional folk dance in their country.
Sri Lankan dancer Chamini Herath, 24, appears visibly stressed in between rehearsals though she has been a regular at the festival for the last four years. “Every performance is different,” she says, “and requires complete concentration and multiple rehearsals.” However, raving about her experience at this festival, she adds, “I have made great friends from other countries such as Bangladesh and Poland. Dance and drama serves as a common platform to bond and exchange ideas.”
The International Children’s Festival of Performing Arts will be held in the city till December 13
