In a novel way to welcome monsoon, a three-day festival of dance, music and art would be held here by a Kolkata-based organisation in collaboration with the Orissa Dance Academy and Jayadev Foundation starting June 18.
Organised by Reflection of Another Day (RAD), the festival aptly named
'Megha Utsav', was being held to commemorate the arrival of monsoon, which usually hits the region around this time of the year, and the accompanying lightning and thunderclouds, one of the organisers said.
Though monsoon has remained a dominant theme in Indian literature, as evident from the works of three prominent poets Kalidas, Jayadev and Rabindranath Tagore, the young generation appears to have forgotten the essence of nature, Orissa Dance Academy Secretary and prominent Odissi dancer Aruna Mohanty said here.
Bhubaneswar had been chosen as the venue for 2003 festival as Orissa was Jayadev's birth place and works of the poet would be the focus of the festival, she said.
In a unique ceremony to mark the opening of festival, Orissa Chief Minister, Naveen Patnaik would plant a Kadamb sapling on the Rabindra Mandap premises, the venue of the event, with water fetched from three sacred rivers -the Ganga, Sipra and Mahanadi.
The first evening's programme would feature recital of Geeta Govinda by eminent vocalist Pandit Raghunath Panigrahi, Mitali Chinara and Saurav Nayak.