“It's the largest festival of the third world countries,” pronounced Waman Kendre, director of the National School of Drama, while talking about the upcoming 19th edition of their annual festival in Delhi on Tuesday. To be held from February 1-21, the Bharat Rang Mahotsav is considered one of the largest running festivals in the world.
The underlying theme of this year's festival will be 'whose theatre is it anyway?' Along with the World Theatre Forum debate on 'the actor at the vanishing point', the experts converging at the festival will also seek to decode the role of an actor in the context of modern technology.
This year will see 94 shows, of which 80 are Indian and 14 international. These were chosen from 602 home entries and 70 odd from other countries. Notably, China and Pakistan are absent this year. “China has not sent a play this year; Pakistan sent their entry but that did not get selected. Quality is the only control we have,” Kendre replied to a query.
The new feature added this year is the Katha series, where the artists will talk about their art in a workshop-conversation format. These include Kirtan from Maharashtra, Marsiya from Uttar Pradesh and Chakyar Koothu from Kerala.
Along with a live webcast of several plays, the festival, which has been put together by nearly 300 people at NSD, will also hold its satellite or parallel festivals in five other towns—Agartala, Pune, Patna, Hyderabad and Kurukshetra. The participating countries include Iceland, Austria, Brazil, Romania, Israel, Nepal, Germany and SAARC nations.
