The National Mime Festival was organised at the National Mime Institute in CK Block, in collaboration with Indian Mime Theatre, the directorate of cultural affairs and the Eastern Zonal Cultural Centre. Niranjan Goswami, who has been organising this festival every year since 1984, was also at the helm this year.
“The main focus of this year’s programme was to provide a platform to people from all over the country and abroad. We want more and more new talent to showcase their work at the festival. A new activity called Face to Face was also started this year. It was an open interaction of the actors, directors and technicians with the audience on the day after their performance. This helped the team get feedback and suggestions from the audience on a face-to- face level,” said Goswami.
The curtains went up on the festival with an act called ‘Loko Katha’, directed by Suroj Biswas.
The next few days saw scintillating performances by various groups from states all over India like Maharashtra, Manipur, Assam, Uttarakhand, Rajasthan etc. One came even from Bangladesh. Some prominent directors such as Tarak Chakraborty, Lalawmpuia Tochchwng, Subir Mistry, Rezwan Rajan, Asif Ali Khan, Dhiraj Hawladar and others also staged their shows at the festival.
Niranjan Goswami of National Mime Institute (in yellow panjabi)
Several workshops and seminars were also organised as part of the festival. Apart from Goswami, experts such as Sadananda Singh, Sabyasachi Dutta, Kalpataru Guha and Asif Sher Ali Khan participated in them.
“The Mime Seminar was a perfect opportunity for artistes from different parts of India to learn about what their contemporaries are doing in this field. Several presentations and discussions helped to further our cause,” said Guha, one of the experts.
“The biggest take-away was the question-and-answer round after the performances. Several new ideas came about. We talked about unique approaches to mime in different parts of the world and also met artistes from Bangladesh. Every artiste has his own unique way of approaching his art form. That widens the spectrum of our art,” said Mistry, one of the directors.
The programme was also watched by millions across the world through the Facebook page and YouTube channel of the institute.
“We wanted to reach out to a wider audience. That is why we thought it would be a good idea to do a Facebook Live and a live telecast on YouTube. To our surprise, we got a phenomenal response on the internet. We were surprised but also very happy that this could be done. From now on, this will be a regular feature for all our programmes,” signed off Goswami.
