New Delhi, Jan 17 (PTI) In a visual treat, Kathak andfolk dances of Cambodia, Malaysia, Thailand and othercountries will be seen together this Republic Day, as a groupof students of a school here will perform during the parade,marking the Indo-ASEAN ties.
They will be among the 770 students who will take part inthe grand celebration at Rajpath on January 26.
In an unprecedented event, leaders from the 10 ASEANmembers -- Thailand, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia, thePhilippines, Singapore, Myanmar (Burma), Cambodia, Laos andBrunei -- will be the chief guests in the Republic Daycelebrations.
"A total of 150 of students from the Mount Abu PublicSchool in Delhi's Rohini, will present a colourfulperformance, dressed in the traditional attire of the 10countries. Some of them would also be in Indian costume,representing the 25 years of partnership of India with ASEAN,"a senior official said today.
A preview for the media was held here, with some of theselected students sharing the excitement ahead of the big day.
Deepti Singh, 13, a student of Class 8 at the Mount AbuPublic School, dressed up in a traditional filipina womencostume, said, "We are so thrilled to perform on Rajpath. Iwill be representing the folk dance of the Philippines. And afew students will do Kathak."Anushaka Sharma, 12, said, "I will represent theMalaysian culture. We did some research on Internet and sawvideos, and it took us about a month to get the hang of it.
But, we learned so much about other countries."There will be a total of five performances by thestudents, including two from the Directorate of Education(DoE), Delhi government, and one each by the groups from theNorth East Zone Cultural Centre and the South Central ZoneCultural Centre of the Ministry of Culture.
"The students from the South Central Zone, Nagpur, willperform the Baredi folk dance related to cattle farm cultureand those from the North East Zone, Dimapur, will do Sangraifolk dance of Tripura, performed by Mog tribe in the month ofApril," Deputy Director (Physical Education), Delhi's DoE,Harjeet Kaur, said.
Students of the Rani Chennamma Sarvodaya Kanya Vidyalaya,Jahangirpuri, will be the first to perform, with a song'Bharat Ke Rang' and the Oxford Foundation School, Najafgarhwill give a performance themed on 'Shikshit Bharat, SashaktBharat'.
Asked how many slum children would be participating inthe grand celebrations, Kaur said, "Most of the studentscoming from the South Central Zone are slum-dwellers, and manystudents of the school in north west Delhi's Jahangirpuriarea, are also from slums.""Most students are from Classes 8, 9 ad 11, and a fewstudents fro Class 7 also. They have practiced really hard onRajpath and are now raring to go," she said. PTI KNDKJ.
This is unedited, unformatted feed from the Press Trust of India wire.