Mylapore Festival to kick off this week

The festival will take place between January 9 and January 12 around the Kapaleeswarar Temple and at the Nageswara Rao Park

Updated - January 08, 2020 02:29 am IST - CHENNAI

Kolam competition at Mylapore Festival in Chennai. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

Kolam competition at Mylapore Festival in Chennai. Photo: K.V. Srinivasan

The 18th Edition of the four-day Mylapore Festival will kick off on Thursday, at a dozen venues, covering presentations from at least 400 artistes participating in 30 events. Sundaram Finance is the organiser of the event.

Speaking to mediapersons on Tuesday, Sundaram Finance Managing Director T.T. Srinivasaraghavan said, “The Mylapore Festival is an integral part of the Chennai Margazhi calendar, attracting a wide cross-section of people to savour the flavour of Madras. Traditional games, kolam contests for kids and adults, rangoli contest, food walks, heritage walks, temple talks, traditional dance drama, folk dance, music and traditional games will be part of this year’s Mylapore Festival.”

Vincent D’Souza, Curator of the Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival said, “The aim of the Mylapore Festival is to use the precincts of the temple and the open spaces in this heritage zone for cultural events. The highlight at the main stage in front of the Kapaleeswarar Temple will be the Bharatanatyam dance drama on all the four evenings.”

The festival will take place between January 9 and January 12 around the Kapaleeswarar Temple and at the Nageswara Rao Park. The Festival will kick off on Thursday morning at 7 a.m. with a Mikeless Group Kutcheri at the Nageswara Rao Park by students from Sruthilaya School.

The events at the main stage in front of the 16 pillar mandapam opposite the Kapaleeswarar Temple on the four evenings starting 6 p.m. include Bharatanatyam dance drama presentation, folk dance and Indian Music Choir concert. A highlight of this year’s festival is the Indian Gymnastics show at 6 p.m. on Sunday. Another highlight this year is the theme music concert and talks in the evenings in a Heritage Bungalow in Palathope (Vedanta Desikar Street).

Anchor Pulli Kolam contests on Saturday and Sunday, the traditional Pulli Kolam contests on Saturday and Sunday evening at 3.30 p.m. on North Mada Street are expected to attract 200 participants from across the city.

There will be a food walk on Friday and Saturday evening starting at 5 p.m. from Indian Bank on North Mada Street, anchored by Sridhar Venkataraman while there will be heritage walks on the ‘Goddesses of Mylapore’ and Vintage Houses walk on Sunday morning at 7 a.m. On Sunday evening at 4 p.m., Pradeep Chakravarthy will anchor a Temple Talk for children.

Children have been an integral part of the Sundaram Finance Mylapore Festival. Events for children include a chess tournament, art and craft workshop at the Nageswara Rao Park on the weekend mornings and the traditional games contest on weekend evenings. Around 40 children will also present Mikeless Kutcheris on all the four mornings at the Nageswara Rao Park.

Members of the Indira Nruthya Academy, Secunderabad will present ‘Bonalu’, a festival dedicated to Goddess Mahakali and other traditional songs at the main stage opposite the 16 pillar mandapa on Thursday and Friday evening. To encourage the use of environment-friendly bags, Sundaram Finance will hand out 10,000 environment friendly cloth bags during the festival. Since 2010, Sundaram Finance has distributed over 1 lakh cloth bags during the Mylapore Festival.

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