After adults, Nagpur kids ready to rock Khasdar fest

Nagpur: After more than 1,000 artists from Nagpur city gave an extraordinary start to this year’s Khasdar cultural festival, city children are all set to rock the event this Friday. More than 400 children from Nagpur – singers, dancers, instrumentalists — are rehearsing together daily for their ‘Tare Zamin Par’ event which is to be staged at Ishwar Deshmukh College ground on December 9.
Being a Sunday, the kids started began practising at 7 am on the 25,000 sq ft stage itself and it went on for hours.
Well-known orator Ashutosh Adoni has written the script and screenplay of the ‘Tare Zamin Par’ show.
Artistes are rehearsing under the guidance of Shirish Bhalerao, Gajanan Ranade, Snehal Ranade, Sanjay Bhakre, Shekhar Mangalmurthy, Roshan Nandavanshi, Swati Bhalerao, Ravi Satphale, Kunal Anandam, Rituja Gadkari, and Rasika Bavdekar.
Bal Kala Akademi, a group dedicated to artistic development of children, is presenting this event. All 400 participants were selected through open auditions held in November first week.
“Bal Kala Akademi aims at holistic development of children. We organize various programs like group song competitions, storytelling competitions to provide a platform to the children. For Khasdar, we decided to bring an all-new musical dance-drama,” said Madhura Gadkari, president of the group.
Near 1,000 students from Class 1 to 10 participated in the auditions and the best 400 of them were shortlisted. “Some of them are good singers; some are learning dance while others play instruments. These kids are future artists of Nagpur. We must encourage them,” said theatre veteran Sanjay Bhakre, executive president of the group.
“It’s appreciable that these kids are managing their schools, studies and rehearsals very well. We are sure that the play will be one more memorable event of this year’s festival,” said Ravindra Fadnavis, chief patron of the akademi.
The kids’ performance will be held at 6 pm on December 9 after which Shailesh Lodha and others will present a ‘kavi sammelan’.
Transgenders’ performance
With a motive of leaving no class of the society behind, the organizers of Khasdar have given a special opportunity to transgender artists too. Mission Vishwa Mamatva Foundation is coordinating this event. This event will be staged on Monday at 6 pm before the scheduled show of Hindi drama ‘Chanakya’ featuring actor Manoj Joshi.