India to host Theatre Olympics from February 17 to April 8

NEW DELHI: Over 25,000 artistes from 30 countries will participate in the

Theatre Olympics

to be held in India for the first time. The eighth edition of the theatre extravaganza, which will be inaugurated on February 17 at the

Red Fort

by Vice President M Venkaiah Naidu, will conclude in Mumbai on April 8.

Referring to it as the biggest celebration of theatre, National School of Drama (

NSD

) director Waman Kendre said the event will serve as a platform to showcase India’s traditional theatre forms. “The 51-day theatre extravaganza will see 450 shows including 65 shows by international artistes, 600 ambient performances and 250 youth forum shows,” Kendre said.

Calling it a matter for pride for hosts India, culture minister Mahesh Sharma said the event will have 65 foreign shows that will be held in 17 cities across the country. It will also see programmes like the ‘Living Legends’ series, and ‘Master Classes’ besides two international and six national seminars.

From India, eminent Indian theatre personalities who will participate in the festival will include Shabana Azmi, Paresh Rawal, Manoj Joshi, Seema Biswas, Ratan Thiyam, Alyque Padamsee, M K Raina, Bansi Kaul and Usha Ganguly. India will use the opportunity to showcase its own talent, assimilating divergent theatre forms — from Swang to Rasleela, Nautanki, Bhand Pather and Jatra among others, under the ‘Ek Bharat, Shreshtha Bharat’ theme.

The festival will play host to international theatre artistes such as Theodoros Terzopoulos (chairman, International Committee of Theatre Olympics), Liu Libin (China), Sahika Tekand (Turkey), Jan Fabre (Belgium), and Pippo Delbono (Italy).

Kendre said the Olympic’s theme of “Flag of Friendship” will serve to create a dialogue between Indian and global artistes. “With this international event, we wish to express our theatre practices, its variations, philosophies and the sheer strength of our texts, narratives and ways of presentation in front of a global audience. In return, we extend our arms to welcome the practices, ideologies and philosophies of visiting performers,” he said.