Creative journey to take flight at IGNCA

Delhi is all set to witness the fourth edition of the annual three-day Udaan Utsav, a platform that offers talented students (in undergraduate and PG courses) to showcase their skills in various disciplines like theatre, street plays, film making, classical and folk dance, solo singing, writing,  poetry, painting, poster making and sculpture making etc. 
The brainchild of a group of Delhi University teachers, the festival will be held at Indira Gandhi National Centre for the Arts (IGNCA) from Feb 12-14. 
While the festival is held just once a year with an aim to pick up the best of talent that is available in colleges. What begins after that is a year-long process of grooming this talent. The organisers provide masterclasses to the winners in different categories and also give them an opportunity to perform by creating our own productions. 

“Our students have performed at NSD. Last year our students performed a play on Chatrapti Shivaji at Lal Qila which was a huge production and big hit. This year we will be takeing our students to Raanchi,” says Sumit Maluja, convenor, Udaan Utsav. 

The last four years’ journey of Udaan Utsav has been pretty wonderful. “In 2016 we began with just one street play competition for which nearly 1000 participants registered. The next year we had 2,500 participants for competitions held over four verticals. In 2018, we introduced five more verticals and had over 4000 participants. This year we are expecting close to 5000 for the 15 categories of competitions,” 
says Maluja. “Not just this, the kind of talent that is coming up is remarkable. The festival is only going higher and higher up,” he adds. “Moreover, we no more have to advertise. The moment the festival is announced online, entries start pouring in. 

Similarly, experts in different field happily offer free workshops to mentor students,” says Maluja. So why is this limited to students alone? Surely there are many talented youngsters who have completed their education?

“We have that plan in mind. But as of now we want to find out our talented students and groom them so that they can think along the lines of making a career in art fields if they so wish,” he says. Experts from different fields who are likely to visit the Udaan Utsav and mentor students include Sandeep Marwah, Abhijieet Bhattacharya, Kartekeya Sharma, Shekhar Sen, Adwaita Gadanayak and Manoj Towari.