Konark Festival-2019: World-class tourism-cultural show

Bhubaneswar: Administrative preparations have been geared up to make Konark Festival-2019 a world-class tourism and cultural show.

The Konark festival would be held in Open Air Auditorium, Konark, in the backdrop of the mammoth Sun Temple, from 1st to 5th December, the peak tourist season in Odisha.

A high-level meeting to this effect was held under the chairmanship of Chief Secretary Asit Tripathy in state Lokseva Bhawan conference hall on Thursday.

The matters relating to the sequence of the programmes, selection of items and troops were discussed in the meeting.

The Chief Secretary directed to focus on the quality of the programmes and participating troops for escalating the festival to world-class tourism and cultural show.

 It was decided in the meeting that the cultural troop from Indonesia would present their performance at the festival. The troops having national and international reckon from different parts of India would present their performances.

Tripathy directed to give place to various classical dance and songs of India along with the Odissi dance and music.

Each day, there would be an Odissi programme followed by other classical dances. The dances like Kuchipudi, Bharatnatyam, Kathak, Mohiniattam, Manipuri etc would be presented by the troops from various states.

Tourism secretary Vishal Dev appraised that Konark Festival-2019 would be followed by other great cultural events like Mukteswar Festival from 14th to 16th January, Rajarani Festival from 18th to 20th January and Dhauli Utsav from 6th- 8th February.

The administration has started advance preparations for these festivals.

Culture secretary Manoranjan Panigrahi along with dance and song experts from different parts of Odisha participated in the discussion.