International folkdance festival begins in Shimla

SHIMLA - A five-day-long international folkdance festival featuring young female dancers began here recently.

This is the second time the folkdance festival included international participants.

Over 1500 girl students from six countries namely, India, Nepal, Bhutan, Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and the Philippines, participated in the 14th All India Women Folk Dance Competition, which began on Tuesday.

The festival has been jointly organized by the State’s Department of Language, Art and Culture and a Non-Governmental Organization (NGO), and it was inaugurated by Himachal Pradesh governor Urmila Singh in Shimla.

“This festival creates and promotes brotherhood amongst our youngsters and gives us a chance to look at each other’s traditions, since everyone cannot go everywhere. You can see that performers are dressed in such beautiful traditional attire, and their tradition can be seen in their folk dance, music and clothes,” said, Kapoor Bhan, organizer of the festival.

“When people from Himachal will step out and people from other places will come here to perform, only then can we generate brotherhood and reduce fights and corruption. On one hand, politicians are corrupting our culture, but on the other hand these students are not only keeping our culture alive but also teaching us love and brotherhood,” he added.

Bhan also said this festival aims at creating awareness about different cultures and traditions by using the medium of folk dance.

“Our culture is endangered and we should try to show it in front of people since it is very precious and must be preserved,” said, Pallavi, a participant from Darjeeling.

The foreign participants professed themselves happy to perform in Shimla.

“We got a chance to perform our Nepali (Nepalese) culture to promote it here, and also get learnt some different kind of Indian cultural dances,” said Ranju Srestha, a participant from Nepal.

The festival will conclude on October 3. By Hemant Chauhan (ANI)