Annual chhau dance festival to begin in Seraikela from 3 April

The much-awaited annual folk dance festival, Chhau Mahotsav, is set to take off from April 3 in Seraikela. This festival is being organized by the state government since the past many years and is a bid to promote and popularize chhau, which had been declared as an Intangible Cultural Heritage by UNESCO in 2010.
This has been reported in telegraph.co.uk dated 22 March 2016.

The festival is hosted by the state art and culture department and, the nine-day event will see performances not only by chhau artistes on three schools of the dance, Seraikela, Manbhum (Purulia) and Mayurbhanj but also other dance forms. These are artistes performing Odissi and Gotipua, a traditional dance form of Odisha, Bengal ballet, the Bihu dance from Assam, lavni from Maharashtra, garba from Gujarat and ghoomar from Rajasthan.
Like last year, package tours will be organized - these would be of four days and three nights duration at the festival to Seraikela from Ranchi. The rates would be between Rs 14,750 and Rs 19,450, depending on the type of car used for travel.
This tour package will be basically to promote tourism. Last year, road shows announcing Chhau Mahotsav had been organized in Ranchi and New Delhi. Similar plans are there this year also.


Image courtesy wikimediacommons.org

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