BhuFeSto To Revive The Magic Of Storytelling During Hockey World Cup

Bhubaneswar: Scripting a new story in story-telling tradition across the city, BhuFeSto (Bhubaneswar Festival of International Storytelling) will be a part of the City Festival during the Hockey World Cup.

City-based Bakul Foundation will curate it in collaboration with Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) and will feature the best storytellers and folk musicians from the participating countries in the World Cup and also have the best of storytellers from India and Odisha.

The dates as presumed are December 6 to 10. Three locations, Buddha Jayanti Park in Chandrasekharpur, Indira Gandhi Park in the city centre and Kalabhoomi or Madhusudan das Park in Pokhariput area, will witness the event simultaneously.

Secretary, BDA, Bhabani Chayani said the idea emerged keeping in mind the trends across the globe. “We must not also forget, storytelling in our country and our state is a traditional practice. It has been an integral part of our lives. This event, however, is open not only for children but others too,” he said.

BhuFeSto is being planned as a regular annual event of the city of Bhubaneswar and aims to be the biggest storytelling festival in the country and one of the most popular such event in the world. Festivals create a brand for a city,like the Literature Festival has done for Jaipur and the Art Biennale has done for Kochi and the Film Festival has done for Cannes, BhuFeSto similarly aims to create a brand for the city by making it the biggest and best such event in the country.

Open Parks were chosen so that many people can participate and the parks will also be developed through art installations into theme parks, added Chayani. Plans are afoot to transform one of the parks into an atmosphere of Grimm’s Fairy Tales from Germany.

There will be about 20 storytellers including six of the best storytellers and folk musicians in the world from among the participating countries of the world cup such as Australia, South Africa, Netherlands, Argentina, Malaysia to name a few.

The best storytellers from India will also participate in the Festival that is being co-curated by the Hyderabad based Deepa Kiran, one of the most famous storytellers of India, and who has been a regular participant in the best storytelling events in the world.

Curator Sujit Mahapatra, the founder of Bakul Foundation, has made storytelling a part of the regular weekly calendar of Bhubaneswar. Sujit had earlier organized “Storytelling from Around the World” at the Bakul Library in Satyanagar in which every Saturday a storyteller from countries such as Canada, USA, Israel, South Africa, Australia, Ireland, England, Japan, South Korea, Germany, Italy would come and share stories of their countries and promote multicultural understanding.

Besides, there will be an elaborate outreach programme in the city a month before the festival. The storytellers, Chayani said, as a part of the fest promotion, will go to schools and conduct sessions to introduce children to the beautiful world of stories. Some of the visiting expert storytellers will also conduct workshops with local storytellers and teachers.