New Delhi, March 12 (IANS) The ArtEast Festival, now in its third edition, will put a sharp focus on the northeastern region of India through visual and performing arts and conversations. The rivers Brahmaputra will also be the festival’s subject.
The three-day festival, starting from Thursday at the India International Centre (IIC) here, has been curated by Kishalay Bhattacharjee of the O.P. Jindal Global University. It is organised by National Foundation for India (NFI).
Through art installations, video installations, poetry, dance, music and conversations, ArtEast will dive into the source, history, exploration and imagination of the Brahmaputra, the organisers said.
It will present a visual and historical journey from the river’s source at Mansarovar in Tibet to becoming Siang in Arunachal Pradesh, Brahmaputra in Assam, and Jamuna, Padma and Meghna in Bangladesh.
An underlying focus of the festival is on art, history, livelihood, migration, documentation and discussion.
As per the schedule, dancer Surjit N. from Manipur will choreograph a dance piece on migration and displacement; National Geographic explorer and author Arati Kumar Rao will exhibit her artwork and photographs along with filmmakers Parasher Baruah and Apal Singh’s video installations.
A wall of poetry on the ‘seven stages of the river’ will be curated by poet-author Sumana Roy.
Lalsawmliani Tochhawng will curate the history of exploration and discovery of the river through a fascinating inlay of maps, archival material and photographs.
Historians Arupjyoti Saikia, Uma Dasgupta and Mahesh Rangaragan, environmental journalist Joydeep Gupta and Tibetalogist Claude Arpi, mountaineer Harish Kapadia, journalist Samrat Choudhury and writer Parimal Bhattacharya will explore the ecology, intrigue and the future of the ‘sky river’.
The festival also features a concert by fusion musicians ‘Chaar Yaar’.
One of the festival highlights will be the traditional tea-tasting sessions, curated by Dhurbajit Chaliha, an Assamese tea planter who will speak of river’s tea story and show how to brew tea leaves.
ArtEast is supported by The Sasakawa Peace Foundation (SPF) and organised in partnership with New Imaginations, Jindal School of Journalism and Communication.
–IANS
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