Dancers from Kashmir perform at the festival in EZCC

Kashmir is famous not only for its scenic beauty but also for its traditional dances. EZCC, under the ministry of culture, hosted Jashn-e-Kashmir recently, where around 75 artistes from Jammu & Kashmir performed.

All the artistes performed different cultural dance forms like Dogri and Kud of Jammu, and Rouf and Hafiz Nagma of Kashmir. Rouf is the most popular dance form, restricted to women folk and performed mostly during Ramzan.

“We are very happy to be here. We are students as well as performers. This kind of show helps us showcase our culture,” said 18-year-old Mahi Sharma from the Dogri dance group.

All the female artists of the group wore colourful phirans, Kashmiri cloaks and headgears known as kasabas.

Hafiza is a unique dance form where the role of the women characters are played by men.

The performers had been travelling to various parts of West Bengal, like Midnapore and Bolpur, and were headed for Port Blair for their next performance after the show in Salt Lake.

“We have organised this programme because artistes from Jammu & Kashmir don’t get such an opportunity. We want to promote emotional integration as well as help them financially. We also want to give them exposure,” said Samarendra Kumar, director of EZCC.

Jashn-e-Kashmir also showcased the art and culture of the state through stalls that sold pashmina shawls, semi-precious jewellery, woodcraft and papier mache craft.

Sukriti Agarwal

Fingers speak

Mute artists created numerous paintings at an art camp held recently and they will be on sale at CF Block’s Ideal School for the Deaf around the year.

The school had held the camp as part of the fifth National Art Festival and there were more than 20 mute painters who participated. Many of them are now professional artists or art teachers.

Since the workshop took place at the turn of the new year, Rinku Bhadra painted a canvas showing an old calendar being torn apart. Bhadra is an art teacher at CK Block’s Rekha Chitram. Artistes and twin brothers Asish and Debashis Kabasi too took part.

There are several portraits and paintings of sceneries and the price range is Rs 2,000 onwards.

“We shall get these paintings framed and then they would be on sale. People can purchase them from the campus,” said principal of the school Shibapada Chakraborty.

There was also a sit-and-draw competition for mute students and more than 70 students took part. In the five-to-eight-year-old category Priyabrato Nath of Little Flower, an art school in New Barackpore, won. In the nine-to-12-year age group, it was Seema Das and in the 13 to 17 year group it was Asit Das, both from Ichapur Deaf and Dumb School.

For the last-mentioned category, students were to make greetings cards. Ruksana Khatun and Monidipa Das, both from the Salt Lake school, had made cards with scenaries and landscapes. Monidipa had even brought some cards that she made using Photoshop earlier. The cards cost Rs 15 apiece.