Hyderabad :
The cultural extravaganza that is Krishnakriti festival got off to a colourful start at the Kalakriti art gallery. The inaugural ceremony of the 11th edition witnessed insightful lectures on art, culture and education and a movie that threw light on the social practice of a tribal community from the Northeast of the country.
The inaugural session also saw the conferment of the 2014 Kalaakriti Award for Achievements and Excellence to Uzramma who heads the decade old The Decentralised Cotton Yarn Trust(DSYT) for its efforts to resolve crucial issues facing the handloom industry by including spinners, dyers,weavers,farmers and ginners in a collective working environment and also for the regeneration of the cotton ‘Malkha’. Veteran actor Shankar Melkote gave away the award to Uzramma while author and political scientist Jyotirmay Sharma presented a memento to her.
“In the year 2005, the DCYT mission was to replace the capital-intensive mass production mode of cotton yard production with small-scale localised yarn-making, compatible with the small scale of cotton farming and hand weaving.” states Uzramma. DSYT hopes to see the indigenous cotton textile as a low carbon and clean industry for which India can earn international credit towards emission reduction. The inauguration was followed by two talks- ‘Negotiating the World with Rabindranath Tagore’ by historian R Siva Kumar and ‘Understanding origin of art by ontologist Navjyoti Singh.
The film ‘Every time you tell a story’ was also screened which narrated the change over the centuries profiling Tsungkotepsu, the traditional head- hunter’s shawl, which used to be an honour for the Ao Nagas tribesmen which is a standardised product available in the market at Annapurna Studios.
The five-day festival features dance, music, cinema and painting alongside talks, seminars and workshops. These programmes are free for the public with the proceeds going to the charity. “Every year, the proceeds we receive will go to the charity to deserving students in field of education, we support 125 young students all over the country,” states Prashant Lahoti, founder of Lahoti foundation which conducts the Krishnakriti Art Festival.
Visitors will also get the opportunity to see the works of artistes from different parts of the country such as Akhilesh Varma, Avijit Dutta, Chintan Upadhyay, DLN Reddy, Laxman Aelay, Manish pushkale, Sheetal Gattani and several others at Kalakriti Art Gallery.
The five-day film festival will go on till January 11 at six venues in the city.
source: http://www.newindianexpress.com / The New Indian Express / Home> Cities> Hyderabad / by Revati-Danget / January 09th, 2015