Art of the matter

SD Sharma

Over the years the City Beautiful has attained the status of cultural hub of North India due to substantial upsurge in the cultural spectrum of performing arts.

Chandigarh Administration and Tagore Theatre Society, Punjab Arts Council with its subsidiary academies, Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) and North-Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC) have been majorly contributing to the cultural scene of the city. Other established institutions engaged in the propagation of performing arts like the Pracheen Kala Kendra, Theatre for Theatre, Sanskar Bharti. 

Here is a brief of the overall contribution of all these main players in nurturing the cultural soul of the city hitherto known as pathron ka shehar.    

Significant landmarks

International flavour

The 8th Theatre Olympics Festival-2018 organised by National School of Drama in collaboration with Chandigarh Sangeet Natak Akademi (CSNA) and Department of UT Cultural Affairs was held at Tagore Theatre from March 20 to April 3. Over a dozen plays were staged by nationally acclaimed groups from India, including a memorable play Dziady NOC Druga by a group from Poland.

Writers meet

The World Punjabi Conference-2018 that saw the participation of Punjabi writers from various countries was held under the aegis of Punjab Arts Council at Punjab Kala Bhavan early this year.  

Tax benefits 

The year brought good news to registered theatre groups as they are now exempted from entertainment tax on ticketed shows, which extends up to Rs 499 per ticket.

All about plays

For the first time Theatre for Theatre group presented a 30-day long winter theatre festival at Navrang Theatre in city which showcased relevance of all other elements associated with theatre like music, dance, mime, painting, poetry, besides interactions with thespians.

Honour bound

City-based Kathak guru Shobha Koser, registrar, Pracheen Kala Kendra, was conferred with the prestigious Sangeet Natak Award- 2018.

String operation 

The Tagore Theatre Society, under the aegis of UT Cultural Affairs, presented the International Puppet Festival with the participation of groups from Brazil. Indonesia, Argentina and India, which was a big draw at Tagore theatre. Besides, the Society staged 12 plays during the Jaspal Bhatti Comedy Monthly Series, as a tribute to the legend.  

Bollywood presence  

Popular Bollywood personalities like Rakesh Bedi, Kashmira Shah, Rajesh Puri, Avatar Gill (Play Wrong Number) Saurabh Shukla (Barf) and Kulbhushan Kharbanda ( Atamkatha) regaled the city audience.   

Organising skill

The North-Zone Cultural Centre (NZCC) Patiala, remained the prominent organisation with scores of special programmes and festivals. A 10-day long Octave-2018 at Kalagram featured top folk maestros, craftsmen, regional folk artistes in several programmes. The newly- introduced ventures like National Yuva Sangeet Utsav, Bal Mahotsav, symposiums to mark birth anniversaries of legendary poets and programmes for celebrating 150thbirth anniversary of Mahatma Gandhi deserve a special mention.

The Punjab Lalit Kala Akademi started new initiatives like Adharshila programme for conducting art workshops and audio-visual presentations by known artistes in schools and colleges. 

New initiatives 

National Travel Grant has been initiated to give exposure to young artistes. Similarly, for the first time the Chandigarh Lalit Kala Akademi launched Open-hand art studios at Corbusier Centre,- 19 and also the 1st  art exhibition was organised by CLKA for the school art teachers of Tricity. The CLKA introduced travelling fellowship and open Hand Art studios scholarships for the young artists.

The Pracheen Kala Kendra introduced a national Yuva Tabla Utsav besides holding 13 classical music and dances festivals featuring legends of art all over India.