BHUBANESWAR: If you love listening to stories, then Bhubaneswar is the place to be. Live storytelling sessions continue to retain their charm in the digital world and to liven up this interest among the people, a storytelling festival ‘BhuFeSto’ will be held from December 6 for five days.BhuFEST or Bhubaneswar city festival, being organised on the sidelines of Odisha Men’s Hockey World Cup, will have an international storytelling festival exclusively for children.
To be held till December 10 at three city parks -- Buddha Jayanti Park in Chandrasekharpur, Indira Gandhi Park near Secretariat and Kharavela Park near Khandagiri-Udayagiri from 2.30 pm to 7.30 pm, the sessions will feature best storytellers and folk musicians from countries participating in the Hockey World Cup.Bhubaneswar Development Authority (BDA) in collaboration with Odisha Tourism and City-based Bakul Foundation will organise the festival which will see participation of 20 storytellers and folk musicians from across the globe.
Some of the best storytellers in the world such as Paula Martin from Argentina, Wangari Grace from Kenya, Dr Wajuppa Tossa from Thailand, Dongjoo Bang from Korea and Sabrina Anastasia from France will be narrating gripping tales.
There will be performances from the rich storytelling traditions of India such as the 13th century Urdu storytelling form of Dastangoi by Himanshu Bajpai and the folk Pandavani tradition from Chhattisgarh by contemporary performer Ritu Verma. The famous Manganiyar tribe of folk musicians from Rajasthan who have given Hindi cinema many popular songs including Nimbuda Nimbuda will also be performing for the first time in a collaboration with Deepa Kiran where stories will be interwoven with songs.
Besides, the rich storytelling tradition of Ravana Chhaya (shadow puppetry) from Odisha will be presented by Gauranga Das and other storytellers in Odia.The festival will feature a special storytelling sessions in sign language for children with hearing disabilities by Nita Gopalakrishnan which will be specially designed with various sounds with focus on a different kind of sensory experience for children.
While the major focus will be on children, radio storyteller Neelesh Misra will also hold several sessions for youngsters and elders alike, sources said.BhuFeSto will make the world cup event more special and offer children something which will be educational as well as entertaining, BDA officials said and added that they have plans to make ‘BhuFeSto’ a regular annual event in the City and make it the biggest storytelling festival in the country.