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BhuFeSto 2023: India’s most famous storytelling event





BhuFeSto 2023: India’s most famous storytelling event

The largest international storytelling event in India, BhuFeSto, or the Bhubaneswar Festival of Storytelling, is back. Currently it is going on at four different parks across the city and will continue until January 17, coinciding with the FIH Odisha Men’s Hockey World Cup 2023. BhuFeSto is happening at the Kala Bhoomi, IG Park, Buddha Jayanti Park, and APJ Abdul Kalam Park. Bakul Foundation is once again curating it as a part of Dot FEST, the City Festival that is being run by BDA, BMC, and Odisha Tourism.

The wonderful tradition of indigenous literature, poetry, and stories is preserved through BhuFeSto, which is specifically curated for youngsters and the elderly. The second iteration of the festival brings together the best storytellers in the world and students from a variety of areas, including schools, colleges, and slums, have the opportunity to take part in the event. For the advantage of the visually and audibly handicapped visitors, a special storytelling session utilizing sign language has been designed.

Lipika Mohanty, a storyteller said, “I have contributed as a judge in selecting the citizen storytellers, like students and teachers from different schools all across the city. Last time Bhufesto did a great job and now it has improved more. Sujit Mohapatra, founder of Bakul, along with BDA (Bhubaneswar Development Authority) is instrumental in organizing this event.“

Every day from 2:30 pm to 7:30 pm, four simultaneous storytelling events take place in the various parks. Antonio Rocha, a well-known American storyteller, performed mime acts and oral English storytelling on Saturday, at IG Park. His stories tended to feature animal characters. An enthusiastic storyteller, Nupur Agarwal told tales utilizing Kamishi Bai, a 900-year-old Japanese storytelling method that blends verbal and visual elements. Kuna Tripathy, a well-known storyteller and anchor in Odia, shared Odia folklore and tales that he learned from his grandparents. Neelesh Mishra, a well-known Hindi storyteller, enthusiastically interacted with the audience while narrating his own self-written Hindi stories.

Talking about his experience at the BhuFeSto, Rocha said, “I have many topics to talk about as I have been doing this for over 30 years, but for the audiences today, I told them some folk tales, and these folk tales have good lessons. They are good entertainment but with a good lesson, and they also have good sustenance for the mind, heart, and soul to make our world a better place. Since everyone here is a wonderful host, the city is wonderful, the festival was superbly prepared, the facilities are incredible, and the stage decoration is absolutely stunning, I feel honored to be here.”

It promises to be considerably greater this time. The festival director of BhuFeSto and founder of Bakul Foundation, Sujit Mahapatra, stated that when BhuFeSto was first put on in 2018, “We had been organizing storytelling sessions in Odisha but we were fresh to the worldwide storytelling circuit. We linked with the best storytellers from all around the world and India after BhuFeSto, especially during covid when Bakul Foundation produced the extremely successful virtual storytelling web series, Storytime@9 and Rabibaar Gapabaar. We are thrilled to inform you that almost all of the storytellers on our first list of those we most want have committed and are here at this year’s BhuFeSto.”

Author: Swetamycity

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