Indian Youth for Arts and Change Festival 2012 organised by LOK

Hundreds of youngsters took to the streets last Sunday (August 26), hoping to spark a revolution with a difference. They were there to celebrate the Indian Youth for Arts and Change Festival or IYAC 2012 with a walk that began from New Market and ended at Allen Park. Organised by LOK, a national creative arts forum, the rally had a carnival-like feel, with young people milling around in colourful costumes that varied from creative to weird, accompanied with the heady beat of drums and other instruments as musicians held impromptu jam sessions. There were vans decked with photographs clicked by young photographers and other artwork.

“The idea was to take the arts to the streets. It looked like a carnival walk but it underlined street as a performance and exhibition space for music, theatre and dance,” said LOK founder Soumyajit Majumdar.

Four days after the colourful walk, LOK, along with its student wing Project YUVA, presented dance and theatre at GD Birla Sabhagar. The evening started with performances by city-based dance crews like Master of Puppets, Fullstop and Freakin’ Twisters. Dance group Shubhangik presented a beautiful rendition of The Ramayana through Odissi and Bharatanatyam.

Dance was followed by the first play of the evening by Project YUVA, titled Have You? (picture right). It explored the lives of young men and women in different parts of the country and how their happy lives had come to an abrupt end because of man-made disasters like the shootout in a California school and the bomb blast at Zhaveri Bazaar in Mumbai. The existence of “joy” in the lives of people was probed and the eternal question “Have you ever loved joy?” was explored.

Next up was a play by LOK, titled Aur Ek Khonj, which is a modified version of their last year’s production Khonj. Billed as the first “travelogue play” in the city, Aur Ek Khonj took a peek into the lives of people in different Indian metros and their eternal search for that something. The break-up scene between a girl and a boy over Skype was innovative and very nicely portrayed by Kheya Chattopadhyay and Aditya Sengupta. Avishek De Biswas of Jadavpur University also put up a competent act as a lost soul in search of answers.

Sadly, seven bands, which were supposed to put up the evening finale — including Neel and the Lightbulbs featuring Q, Alt F4, Bee and the Buskers — could not perform because of lack of time. Seen in the house were Rituparna Sengupta, Shilajit, Kheyali Dastidar and Arindam Ganguly.

Text: Roshni Ali and Shrestha Saha