With all its events cancelled due to the coronavirus pandemic, the Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) has decided to move its lectures online, with the first one on the future of the arts post-COVID-19 scheduled for Monday.
IGNCA member secretary Sachidanand Joshi told The Hindu on Sunday that the series, which would be streamed on the IGNCA Facebook page every Monday, Wednesday and Friday at 4 p.m., would focus on the form arts and culture would take as well as the role of the arts in “transforming society” after the COVID-19 situation was under control.
The first lecture would be on the ‘role of art and culture after COVID-19’ by IGNCA trust president Ram Bahadur Rai. He said the series would continue for about a month, after which a report would be compiled. To begin with, the IGNCA trustees, including classical dancers Sonal Mansingh and Padma Subrahmanyam and art director Nitin Desai, would give lectures, after which eminent artistes and others associated with the arts would be asked to speak, he said.
‘Artistes apprehensive’
“Everybody is wondering what will be the future of arts and culture in the post-COVID-19 scenario and its role in transformation of society. Our lecture series will focus on that. We will bring out a report after 30 to 40 experts have given their views,” he said, adding that artistes were also apprehensive about their future.
In addition to the Facebook series that will be open to the public, IGNCA has also started webinars that require prior registration, he said. The first of these sessions on the topic ‘libraries’ was held on April 24 as part of the Ministry of Culture’s heritage week. This was attended by about 400 people, he said. The next webinar would be held on May 3 on the topic ‘manuscripts and Vedic traditions’, he added.
