Delhi joins the league of cultural hotspots like Edinburgh, Barcelona, Edmonton and New Orleans with a city arts festival. The Delhi International Arts Festival (DIAF) a 14-day bouquet of varied art forms spread over multiple venues in the capital ends today with an evening of ghazals at the old city?s British-era Town Hall.
So how has it been? Festival director Pratibha Prahalad, a noted danseuse, expresses satisfaction over the way the festival has panned out. ?It has been a challenge, but the response has been great,? she beams. Incidentally, the festival of this size was not even on the radar when the year started, but became a place ?where people wanted to join is as the festival approached?.
Prahalad planned the festival for a year and a half, she says, but the ?actual work started just five months ago. For a festival without its secretariat, and in its inaugural year, her largest challenge, she says, was organisational. ?I realised that we require tremendous manpower. While I, with my core team, tried to personally oversee everything, we also relied on a large body of volunteers on the ground.?
Prahalad, who had done the round of to various organisations with a proposal, says the challenge also lay in getting the partners to understand what she had in mind. ?We had no money, and when I started approaching bodies for funding, their first response was ? we have not budgeted for it?. Prahalad admits the actual spend on the festival will be less than what her calculation of what this festival would have cost if all were paid up services ? Rs 10 crore. ?This is a multi-arts, multi-venue festival, and I thought all the national academies would be natural partners for this.? And she sought what a partner could readily provide ? and support came in the form of venues, and occasionally artist fees as well. She cites the example of Sangeet Natak Academi, which provided artistic fees for three of the segments where artists from the academy performed. Prahalad admits that she was ?terrified about raising funds? and ?took whatever support came from wherever?.
But in a city which last hosted a festival of this scale during the 1980s, but has since developed a number of niche festivals, was there a need to add another? ?I have been with the Pune Ganesh festival, and this is the kind of public-private partnership we need,? she says, citing the support of various private organisations. ?The more a city has this kind of a festival, the more it matures into a city with a discerning audience.? Saying that this was an inclusive festival which welcomed those who wanted to partner, her hope also was fringe festivals, which their own funding, could also start around this.
The festival, which brings together theatre, dance, music of the classical, western, ghazal and sufi variants, visual arts, short films, literature including poetry, also saw a number of outreach events in various schools and venues around the city, including one at the country largest prison, Tihar. She wants to add more events to the festival. ?We were very eager to have Dilli Haat as one of our venues. There are a number of things we want to add, whether it is cuisine or walks.?
Prahalad plans to make it an annual event. But before that, the immediate task is to debrief ?look at what we have accomplished and the loopholes that emerged. ?We should have something concrete by February,? she says.
August in edinburgh
In August, Edinburgh?s the place to be in. For that?s when the world extravaganza of arts and culture from around the world enthralls residents and a large number of visitors to the city. The Edinburgh International Festival (EIF) was established as a post-war effort to ?provide a platform for the flowering of the human spirit?. Today the range of areas covered by the over 15 independent festivals is impressive as the names indicate ? the Edinburgh Fringe, People?s, Art, Swing, Book even festivals of Politics, Military Tattoo and Mela for the south Asians.