3-Day Folk Dance & Music Fest In Bhubaneswar From April 2

Bhubaneswar: The 8^th state level folk dance and music festival will kick start from April 2 at Utkal Mandap here.

The festival is scheduled to be inaugurated by Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik.

“More than 2, 000 folk artists from all the 30 districts of the state will participate in the festival to be staged in the open air auditorium of Utkal Mandap”, commissioner-cum-secretary culture department Manoranjan Panigrahi informed in a press conference here on Saturday.

This year, artists of five districts like Dhenkanal, Ganjam, Cuttack, Khurda and Puri will be felicitated for their efforts towards promotion of folk art.

The festival is being organised by culture department since 2011 to explore and promote the dying folk dance and music and also to provide livelihood support to the folk artists.

The state government had launched Block Kala Sanskruti Sangha (BKSS) and Zilla Kala Sanskruti Sangha (ZKSS) on April 1, 2011 and Nagara Kala Sanskruti Sangha (NKSS) and Rajya Kala Sanskruti Sangha (RKSS) for the traditional artists on April 2, 2017. Since then, the services of the traditional artists are being utilised through their art forms for propagation of various government welfare schemes in the nook and corner of the state to create awareness for better implementation of the same.