7th edition of ‘Kathakar: International Storytellers Festival’ was held at the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts ( IGNCA), New Delhi.
Kathakar is the only oral storytelling festival in India and is a part of Ghummakkad Narain- the Travelling Literature Festival which was started under the aegis of UNESCO in 2010. Kathakar is an attempt to not just preserve the art form but also create new audiences for the same.
Highlight of the event was the launch of the book ‘Curious Tales from the Himalayas’ co-authored by Shaguna Gahilote and Prarthana Gahilote.
Kathakar is a special initiative within the bigger festival, Ghummakkad Narain, to promote the oral storytelling tradition which has existed across the world. Though performance storytelling has seen a revival in Europe, in India only few efforts have been made to contemporize the art form.
The festival this year was hosted in the cities of Delhi, Gurugram, Noida and Mumbai. The partners for this year’s festival were the IGNCA of Union Ministry of Culture in Delhi, Heritage Transport Museum in Gurugram and the NCPA in Mumbai.
The main organizers of the festival are the NGOs Nivesh and HHACH.
