Exchange Programme

After the successful visit of US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle earlier this month.

After the successful visit of US President Barack Obama and First Lady Michelle earlier this month,efforts are on to extend the political camaraderie between the two nations to the cultural domain as well. The Indian Council for Cultural Relations (ICCR) has collaborated with the prestigious John F Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts,Washington DC for a three week long festival titled Maximum City that will unfold in the US in March next year. The festival is being billed as a celebration of Indian art and culture in America and making India more relevant to the people of America by showing a window of Indian culture to them, says Alicia Adams,Festival Curator and Vice President,International Programming,Kennedy Center. The Indian embassy in Washington is also involved in organising the festival,that was conceived almost six months back right after the Obama visit was announced in June this year.

Over 500 performers have been invited from India for the festival that will showcase music,dance,art,theatre and films to the people of America in the nine concert halls at the Center. Delhi-based Odissi danseuse Madhavi Mudgal who is opening the festival with a duet performance with noted Bharatnatayam dancer Alarmel Valli says,The attention Indian music and dance gets in Europe is far more than what it receives in the US. It is somehow not a part of their mainstream. This is an effort to showcase our heritage to the people of America and achieve that long lost attention and reach out to the people, says Mudgal,whose performance is titled Samanvaya and promises to showcase a melange of Odissi and Bharatanatayam. Other performers in the dance section include Malavika Sarukkai,The Daksha Seth Dance Company and Kerala Kalamandalam Kathakali troupe.

The music section will feature Ustad Zakir Hussain,L Subramanian,Delhi-based Pandit Rajan Sajan Mishra and sitarist Shubhendra Rao who will perform with his cellist wife Saskia Rao-de Haas. Indian classical music has an impromptu style and depends upon the mood of the performer on the given day. We do not rehearse and plan a performance. An hour before the show we will have a raga in place. Sometimes we change things on stage. It is this oral legacy that we want to showcase. I am sure the audience will love it, says Pandit Sajan Mishra. The section also includes performances by Kailash Khers band Kailasa and by the National Symphony Orchestra,Washington that will feature music inspired by the Indian repertoire.

Theatre will also make its presence felt with Naseeruddin Shahs Motley Theatre Group which will showcase their popular play Ismat Apa Ke Naam and Girish Karnads Broken Images,starring Shabana Azmi. Delhis Ishara Puppet Theatre known to be the leading practitioners of puppetry in India will also be a part of the festival. The literature section will have forums and panels featuring Suketu Mehta and noted British-Indian novelist Salman Rushdie.

A slew of Indian artistes,including Jitish Kallat,Bharati Kher and Reena Saini Kallat,will also showcase their artwork at the Center. I am going to display my work Public Notice II (2007) at the Hall of Nations. Its special because it is an enormous hall and the work will be suspended 50 feet above the ground, says Kallat. His work consists of 4600 sculptures of letters shaped like bones and mounted on shelves. Collectively they form Gandhis speech before he commenced the Non-Co-operation Movement. I chose to display this work because the context was ideal. Much of our current dialogue is in the form of hate speeches and suspicion of the Other. This speech of Gandhi calls for complete resistance to injustice,but with absolute non-violence. Its a poetic political gesture, he says.

The festival will also have 12 chefs from India creating rich Indian platters for the concert goers. However,the street food experience is still being worked upon. A temporary food street serving Indian street food in the lawns should be wonderful, said Suresh Goel,Director Deneral,ICCR.

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