Krishnakriti Festival of Art & Culture Press Meet, Hyderabad

The City of Pearls will open up a bright array of arts this week, as Krishnakriti Festival 2016 in Hyderabad is hosting cultural shows ranging across painting, sculpting, music, heritage, theatre and cinema besides literature over the next four days.

The January 7-10 event will see experts from different fields not just performing, but exchanging ideas over interactive sessions and by holding workshops, alongside a documentary film festival late into the evenings, organisers said Centre for Cultural Resources and Training at Mad edition of the annual festival which strings togethc Amol Palekar, Pakistani artist Rashid Rana, graphij Sufi singer Dhruv Sangari and experimental classic Chandrashekar among others.

The event is to start off with an evocative confluence of poetry and music co-featuring celebrated author William Dalrymple and classical musician Vidya Shah.

Titled 'Enter The Last Mughal', the unique show will bring to life a world of emperors, poets, courtesans, politics, battles, intrigues and love of a bygone era. according to Prshant Lahoti, who heads the Krishnakriti Foundation which is organising the fest in association with The Botanika, Ford, G L Mandhani Trust and Telangana Tourism.

"Also, the foundation provides a six-month internship to artists and students in association with the Embassy of France. Each year, shortlisted candidates will be offered a chance to travel to Paris for higher studies,” he told a press conference here. This time, Kalakriti is also hosting site- specific installations curated by artist-researcher Nirmala Biluka.

The 2003-instituted Foundation founded in memory of Krishnachandra B Lahoti strives to educate people on art beyond mere display of cultural shows, pointed out Prshant, who owns Kalakriti Art Gallery and has a collection of historical maps of India that is believed to be the most comprehensive in the country.

As tor Krishnakiriti 2016, it will conclude with a Hindustani-Carnatic performance by sitarist Shujaat Khan and south Indian flautist Rasika Chandrashekhar on January 10.

This 8.30 pm show, alone, will be held at Shilparamam—also in Madhapur, added Lahoti, who was awarded the Chevalier dans I'Ordre desArts et des Lettres (Knight of the Order of Arts and Letters) by the French Government in 2013.

On day 2, there will he an 'Art Technique' workshop (from 3 pm) where senior Kerala-born artist Valsan Kolleri will lead the proceeding on clay-modelling, followed by Prathap Modi on woodcut.

After this will be interactive sessions by graphic novelist Orijit Sen (‘Drawing Hyderabad') and sculptor Ravinder Reddy ('In Pursuit of Monumentality'). This will be succeeded by a conversation Kolleri will have with scholar Dhritabrata Bhattacharjya ('Magic Hands Shaping Worlds').

At 6 pm, the documentary film festival—River to River Florence Indian Film Festival is a co- oraniser—will kick off with an hour-long movie 'Resonance of Mother's Melody' by Dip Bhuyan.

The evening will also screen 'Ustad Asad Ali Khan - A Portrait' (by Renuka George) on the late Hindustani instrumentalist. This will be followed by an interactive session 'Unplugged', where Western-Carnatic pianist Anil Srinivasan will be in conversation with playback singer Chinmayi Sripada.

Day 3 also will begin with an 'Art Technique' workshop where Poushali Das will give tips on wash and Anil Sharma on 'miniature and realistic paintings in tempera'. An interactive session on 'Space Versus Time: Mapping Hisoriographies — The Narrative of Performance Art in India' will see expert talks by Suresh Kumar G, Manmeet Devgun and Rahul Bhattacharya.
The documentary film for the evening will be 'Space Between' (by Roohi Dixit and Ziba Bhagwagar). Lahore-born Rashid Rana will address an interactive session 'Transpositions' before a Sufi performance by Dhruv Sangari.

The concluding day’s proceedings with begin with a panel discussion of movies. Titled 'So Many Cinemas: Do Filmmakers Have To Be Responsible To Their Audience?', the speakers will be actor Amol Palekar and sociologist Samuel Berthet, besides Hariharan Krishna, Selvaggia Velo and Dr Pawan Manvi.

A panel discussion will ensue on 'Discussing Pluralities/Marginalities In Contemporary Indian Art', featuring scholars Jayram Poduval, Anand Gadapa, Susie Tharu, Rahul Bhattacharya and Anshuman Dasgupta.

From 5 pm, there will be an hour-long Indo-Creole music concert (in collaboration with Alliance Francaise), followed by a documentary film 'Scattered Windows, Connected Doors' (by Roohi Dixit and Ziba Bhagwagar) and a play 'Eight Kings' (by Vikramjit Sinha).