Delhi International Arts Festival enters 10th year

I admire her grit and ability to turn dreams into reality. She dreamt a fabulous dream of giving Delhi, her chosen home, the first of its kind international cultural festival a la Avignon and Edinburgh about 11 years ago. In fact, we were both at another dancer friend’s house for lunch when we all talked about it and she shared this plan that was still in the realm of a dream. A few months later she had made it come true.

I am talking about my dear friend, the Bharatanatyam danseuse and founder director of the Delhi International Arts Festival (DIAF) Prathibha Prahlad, who worked against all odds to make the DIAF happen. It seems like yesterday, but DIAF is 10 already! Every year she threatens to quit and throw in the towel, but some dreams are difficult to give up. In some ways, we are all like that, aren’t we? We hang on to dreams we hold dear in spite of all odds and also continue despite all odds.

I know for a fact that Prathibha believes in cultural diplomacy at the global level and is convinced about the efficacy of the DIAF in bringing it to fruition. “I sincerely believe that everyone should be touched by the creative arts. Art feeds the soul and reveals one’s true identity. It certainly makes a better human being… India is replete with a varied and rich cultural heritage needed to increase its cultural footprint internationally to become the culture capital of the world,” she says.

The DIAF was hosted by the Prasiddha Foundation and Forum for Art, headed by Prathibha. This year, approximately 2,000 performing artists drawn from over 30 different countries participated in the cultural extravaganza, spanning over two weeks. Of the 35 plus venues of the festival were huge heritage monuments including the spectacular Purana Qila, beautiful parks such as Nehru Park, Central Park, auditoria like Kamani Auditorium, Civil Services Officers Institute, Meghdoot at Sangeet Natak Akademi, universities, schools, National Museum, National Archives, foreign cultural centres, India Habitat Centre, hotels, and several formal theatres and informal amphitheatres, cultural and eclectic spaces.

The programmes covered a wide gamut of performances ranging from classical music, world music, band music and Sufi music and dance, a festival of plays, book readings, book launches, a children’s film festival, educational tours, interactive sessions, quiz programmes etc.

The cultural spectacle had a vast outreach, mesmerising audiences across different spectrums with fabulous performances at different venues. Another important highlight of the festival was that entry to these varied cultural expositions was absolutely free, which ensured huge crowds consisting of different age groups.

For me, this year’s high point was the Russian classical ballet Gzhel from the Bolshoi Ballet and Stanislavsky And Nemirovich-Danchenko Moscow Academy Music Theatre. It held many wonderful memories of having seen the Bolshoi on an earlier occasion as I watched mesmerised yet again. It is surely nothing that anyone will forget in a hurry. Some of the other performances that left an indelible impact were the Chinese and Italian troupes, who held audiences in thrall with the sheer power of their spectacular performances.

I have covered many such international festivals in Europe and I find that over the years DIAF has grown into a festival that is already at a par with festivals abroad and all it needs is to be marketed to tourists abroad in tandem with consulates and embassies that send their troupes to also send their tourists to catapult it even further internationally.

Another way could be to hold it in a smaller geographical space like the central part of Delhi for even greater impact. But then there are cries for it to have a wider outreach — the old chicken and egg syndrome! I personally would love to see a greater participation of visual art but then that is my wish list — after all what are fellow dreamers for?
   
Dr Alka Raghuvanshi is an art writer, curator and artist and can be contacted on alkaraghuvanshi@yahoo.com