Traditional art form sets feet tapping

The gentle drizzle on Saturday evening was no deterrent to walkers at the Arignar Anna Park in Royapuram. The reason being the catchy numbers belted out by Bharathi Thirumagan and T. Kalaimagan’s villupaattu group.

Performing Park-u-kulle Villupaattu, Ms. Thirumagan, through her songs, urged residents to segregate waste, not use plastics and help in efforts to green the city. She also performed popular villupaattu pieces, including ones by actor N.S. Krishnan. The event began with a parai performance to sound out the visitors. A. Raffiullah, a resident, said: “It is a nice idea to use the park for such programmes — we can walk or sit and listen to the music at the same time.”

Her concert was part of the Greater Chennai Corporation’s initiative to involve the general public in a variety of art-related events and enable artists to collaborate with those from other cities across the world. The civic body has brought together a collective with a core advisory group of representatives from the Music Academy, Kalakshetra Foundation, Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan (Chennai), Sruti magazine and Aanmajothi. “The effort is part of the city joining the UNESCO’s Creative City network in October 2017. We plan to organise at least three events that are indigenous in nature every month, in parks. Chennai Corporation has offered us a list of 100 parks and we have zeroed in on 40,” said a spokesperson for the core advisory group. For more information, check out www.chennaiuccn.org.