Clown festival in Mumbai has artistes from across India performing

India’s first, month long celebration of clowning '

Laughter Per Kilometre

' came to Mumbai this weekend with a two day festival and had a crowd of kids and adults enjoying themselves. An absolute laugh riot for all, from morning till night - this is Mumbai's First Clown Festival, at Harkat Studios in Andheri.

The five group of artistes from Mumbai, Delhi, Pune, Chennai and Kolkata had three artistes each in the group and after a 20 day residency at

Matheran

they were in Mumbai for the festival. The two day fest will have talks, Q & A along with clown performances by all the teams. The festival was inaugurated by actor Atul Kapoor who also gave a talk on playing a clown and explained the difference between a clown and clowning.

Five directors are working on the project, Doriane Moretus from France, Susie Wimmer from Germany, Camilla Persson and Katarina Rodopolous from Sweden, along with Mumbai born

Rupesh Tillu

who is the force behind the event. He has directed the Pune team of clowns and says, "Whether it is kids or adults, we all have stress and making them laugh is our motto. All over the world we have taken our performance to deprived kids and here in Mumbai we regularly perform for children of sex workers in

Kamathipura

. In fact the second day of our festival we had invited underprivileged children from NGOs around Versova."